Cops Don’t Like Getting Tickets

Well, the first published complaints about the District's new ticketing frenzy come from an unlikely source -- D.C. police.

Several officers told the Examiner that they're flabbergasted that cops have the audacity to give them a ticket, for parking illegally.

“I just couldn’t believe a fellow police officer would tell me he was giving me a ticket without even let me explain some of the circumstances,” Detective Howard Howland said. “What’s the next thing they’re going to be doing? Ticketing police for jaywalking?”

What? Officers are handing out tickets without getting both sides of the story first? That's outlandish. That's criminal. That's ... the law?

Apparently some cops feel they're above that. Sure, they're trying to do their job by attending court to testify or appear before grand juries. And sure, there's construction at the D.C. Court of Appeals that has limited parking even more than normal.

But if there's no place to park, you can't just block other traffic and cause problems for other drivers, right? At least that's what many other D.C. drivers have heard before when officers have issued tickets to them. Fair's fair.

If you don't like it, tell city officials to provide more parking. Mayor Adrian Fenty has already said he'll build more parking lots for officers. But some say they've heard line that before.