Dave said... "There is no crime in Rogers Park. I know this because Saturday night there were 8 or 10 cop cars and 16 or 18 cops standing around at the corner of Damen & Rogers peering into cars to see if seat belts were in use.
Obviously if there was any crime in Rogers Park our brave officers would be too busy pursuing it to butt into the private business of citizens.
Before you wonder, yes, we were among the criminals ticketed for not using a belt while driving 10 mph down the narrow street trying to miss some potholes. It took Officer Fatass 20 minutes to write the ticket in his car -- I assume he has to trace the letters out of a book or something. Can't the City at least give these limited beings preprinted tickets?
But it was good to see so many new faces in the hood. Rogers Park being crime free, none of our Protectors and Defenders against civil liberties had ever been seen around here before. Unless there is more loot to be made, I don't imagine we'll be seeing them again, either. Certainly not chasing down criminals, because we don't have any of those around here.
I figure this vital act of public security cost us around $2000 an hour. It's a good thing we don't need the money to fix those potholes or to bring our public transit system up to 3rd-world standards.
Chicago used to be better than this. Trapping people who dare to use their own judgment as to when they need to strap in used to be the behavior of OCD nannytowns like Schaumburg and Evanston. Chicago had more important things to take care of. But now that we're crime-free, we have to find something for our Finest to do. Thanks to this clever extortion opportunity, 90-pound waitresses were safe for a while from getting beat up. Schoolkids could go about their business without getting shot. And the Authorities have more lunch money. God bless our aldermen, our Protectors and Defenders and our Mayor. What would our town be like without them?"
6 comments:
Interesting how people who break the LAW would like the police to look towards some OTHER crime in progress.
You can prioritize all you want pal, you are still GUILTY as charged.
Maybe if you had your seat belt on, the police would have been done with their mission sooner, and could have got to work on the other issues you seem to be concerned with...
Seat belts save lives.
I thought the same way about these 'checks' until I noticed they were also nabbing people with NO insurance, or NO registration, perhaps even drugs in stolen cars...
e!, you've got it right. The fact is that the law is the law and the police have every right to enforce it, and they should.
With the problems that have been happening with the spring rivalries around here, I have no problem with them completely stopping traffic and checking belts if it gets some criminals off of the street.
I'm new to the area and I plan to stick around, but a lot of people in this area that need to pull their head out of their ass and open their eyes. We have problems EVERYWHERE in Rogers Park. Great community, but we need involvement from everyone. I'm not saying "Neighbor" is one of these people, but we have a lot of people that are here only to flip and move on to something they find better. I find these people only slightly better than the people who are committing the crimes on the street.
We need the police to do their jobs and we need to get off their ass when they do it. Asking the police to NOT ticket those who break the law is, in my mind, akin to asking for a corrupt police department.
This is Chicago, and there are problems in all of the city, not just Rogers Park. Sorry you got a ticket,but that is the way it goes. Maybe this experience will cause you to wear your seatbelt while you are driving on a bigger road, at a greater rate of speed. Who knows, getting this ticket may one day save your life.
Basically, stop bitching and accept the responsibility like an adult.
Why do the police still issue tickets for crimes committed by homeowners? Can't the cops write tickets exclusively for the Section 8 trash people?
These stops are NOT just about people wearing or not wearing seatbelts. The police ALSO pay attention to the cars who turn a corner upon seeing them. These stops work double duty, those who turn a quick corner are usually stopped and checked also. These stops give the police a chance to look in cars, to see who is in them, what is in them, 'do i smell alcohol?' etc. Most people only see them stopping people for not wearing seatbelts, but i wonder what other arrests / tickets they get out of them. Besides, even my son's enojy these stops, and have a tendacy to lower the back windows and state 'they're even on in the back seat' to the officers. If your wearing yours, you just keep going, if your not, well, whose fault is that. I would rather see them on the corner checking cars and being observant, rather than seeing six or seven cars in a white hen parking lot as they did in my old neighborhood......
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