Elk Grove Motorists Fleeced by cops
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and my Grandfather and several Uncles were all cops. I think they were great cops.
A refrain I heard many times in my youth was that a Good cop knows how to “Look and Overlook”.
Good cops had intuition in seeing something just didn’t seem right and when they followed their hunches, it often enabled them to serve as a good restraint to some serious crimes. On the other hand, they also often “overlooked” petty crimes like smoking a joint, jaywalking or playing dice on the streets.
It was important to those men, to focus their energy where it was best spent, in preventing or putting a damper on the real “bad guys” and to overlook the average working Joe who technically broke the law by jaywalking or other innocuous offenses manufactured by politicians to add to the city or county coffers.
And so, I have a great deal of sadness reading about the “Crackdown” in the City of Elk Grove on July 14th, where some 21 police officers from 5 different agencies converged to “give tickets” to 250 people for offenses such as Speeding 5 MPH over the speed limit, jaywalking, riding bicycles without a helmet and other miscellaneous minor traffic offenses.
I’m an Elk Grove personal injury lawyer, and I’d be the first to commend officers for doing serious work arresting drunk drivers or people driving recklessly. I represent seriously injured motorists, and those offenses need to be curtailed.
But this massive police harassment of citizens for minor offenses on July 14th, is terrible. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of ordinary citizens who recognize that these officers are essentially working as bagmen for corrupt politicians who need money for various and sundry monuments to their political aims.
With 250 Tickets at an average of say $300, that’s a quick $75,000 for the City of Elk Grove. And, of course, turnabout is Fair Play. Sometime next month, the City of Citrus Heights will play host to this harassment and then whatever other city has the political clout to play host for a day.
In the meantime, people involved in serious accidents in Elk Grove and other communities have a difficult time having an officer respond to an accident scene to make a police report. Such lack of action causes ordinary citizens to suffer financial difficulties and often ruin because police are allegedly “too busy” fighting serious crime.
Yeah, like traffic tickets to bicycler’s without helmets or jaywalkers!
Don’t get me wrong folks. It’s not the cops doing, they work for the higher-ups who cater to the politico’s.
Police need the respect of the citizens of their city.
This is not the way to get it.
Just my two cents, folks.
I’m Ed Smith, an Elk Grove Auto Accident Lawyer with a comprehensive accident website, www.AutoAccident.com.
If you or someone you love has been injured in an automobile accident, please call me at 916-694-0002 for free, friendly advice.
If you are outside the Elk Grove/Sacramento area, you can call us at (800) 404-5400.
Our firm is a member of Million Dollar Advocates Forum.