Posted on 03/01/2017 6:43:51 PM PST by nickcarraway
Glen Carr pulls out his cell phone as soon as he rounds the corner outside the Miami-Dade County Courthouse. He knows he'll spot them soon.
Then, after he walks just a half-block more, the 40-year-old with a military buzzcut stops and points.
"Look, there are two I can see right now that are illegally parked," he says, chuckling softly and gesturing up NW First Avenue.
Sure enough, two black-and-white Miami Shores Police cruisers sit on either side of an intersection. Both are in crosshatched areas directly in front of no-parking warnings. Carr crosses the street to snap photos that show the signs and the cars' license plates.
"They always park right here," Carr says. "You can see the signs. It's clearly no parking."
For the past six months, Carr has been waging a one-man war on cops who flout parking laws. He hasn't struggled to find scofflaws. Every morning, he walks from his downtown apartment to the Metromover stop outside the courthouse. And nearly every day, he documents a half-dozen police cars hanging out in illegal spots.
"I feel like I'm doing the most I can to help the police officers."
Since August, Carr has sent at least 125 complaints, with photographs and details of where and when he found the illegally parked vehicles, to departments around Miami-Dade County. He's been berated by some officers, ignored by internal affairs investigators, and, more recently, validated by the independent Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP), which ruled that 15 Miami Police Department cops had broken regulations.
But Carr is far from a bomb-throwing, anti-cop anarchist. He's an active-duty Army major working toward an MBA at the University of Miami who says he just wants police to follow the rules like everyone else.
"It's not like I'm against them. I just want them to be better at what they do," Carr says. "I feel they don't hold each other accountable."
Carr grew up in Montana and attended Montana State University for two years before he dropped out to join the Army. "I decided to join the military to finish my degree in there," he says.
He specialized in logistics, serving in Colorado, Georgia, and Alaska before being deployed to Afghanistan in 2002. He served nine months at Forward Operating Base Salerno, a remote, battle-scarred base near the Pakistan border that later gained fame when former NFL star Pat Tillman was killed there by friendly fire in 2004. "It was a rough assignment just a few months after 9/11," Carr says.
A Soldier Has Photographed More Than 100 Illegally Parked Cop Cars in Miami (6) Photo by Glen Carr But he loved his work in the Army. He returned to the United States to train as an officer at Fort Bragg, where he joined the 82nd Airborne Division and spent seven years "jumping out of planes," he says. He later served two stints in Iraq and an assignment at the Pentagon.
One day in Maryland about four years ago, Carr was teaching his 16-year-old daughter how to drive when two police cars went rocketing by on the interstate, doing 80 in a 55 mph zone without lights on.
Carr began looking into state law and couldn't find any reason a police officer should speed on the interstate without emergency lights. So he and his daughter complained, and the local police promised to look into it. "I was able to show my daughter, hey, they were wrong; the police can be wrong too," Carr says. "But they have to be accountable."
Thus was born his new obsession: As he traveled around Virginia and Maryland on his way to and from the Pentagon, he began snapping photos of cops breaking parking and traffic laws and then filed complaints. He knows the infractions are minor, but Carr believes they hint at a larger problem.
"If a police officer is parking in a handicapped spot or in front of a fire hydrant because he's running late," he says, "then what else is he doing wrong?"
A Soldier Has Photographed More Than 100 Illegally Parked Cop Cars in Miami (2) photo by Glen Carr
When Carr moved to Miami in August to study at UM, he wasn't prepared for cops' blatant disregard for the letter of the law. "It's much worse here than anywhere else I've lived," he says.
Local cops haven't been entirely receptive to his photos and complaints. Some have jumped from their cars, demanding to know why he's photographing them.
"I've had a bunch of lieutenants and captains call me, arguing that police officers are allowed to park in no-parking zones if they want to," Carr says. "I asked them for the statutes that say so, and they can never produce any."
Carr does have the statute, though: Florida 316.072, which says all government vehicles — including police — must obey traffic and parking laws unless they're in pursuit of a suspect, responding to an emergency, or dealing with a fire. Neither being late for court nor desperately needing Starbucks coffee is a legal exception.
A Soldier Has Photographed More Than 100 Illegally Parked Cop Cars in Miami (4) Photo by Glen Carr
Some smaller police forces have quickly responded to his complaints, Carr says, and promised to counsel officers to obey parking rules. But others have gone to comical lengths to ignore him. After submitting dozens of complaints to Miami Police, he began calling the internal affairs officers for an update on his cases. Magically, all the complaints had disappeared.
"I don't know if they were losing them on purpose or by accident," Carr says.
That's when he went to the CIP, the independent board that investigates complaints against Miami cops. In January, the board found that 15 city officers he'd photographed in no-parking zones had broken state law and department rules by illegally parking. (The CIP did clear the IA of any wrongdoing in its investigation of Carr's complaints.)
The ruling was a validation of Carr's work — but the CIP's judgments are only recommendations.
But that won't dissuade him from calling out the police. After he finishes photographing the two Miami Shores cruisers outside the courthouse, he notices a North Miami Beach Police SUV sitting at the other end of the block in a no-parking zone. He angles for the perfect photo of the violation.
"I feel like I'm doing the most I can to help the police officers," he says. "I want them to follow the rules."
Y’know, this is one of those things that we/you have a choice as to whether or not we will engage in the activity or not.
And we either decide yea or nay.
And just speaking for myself, this is one of those things that I find it pretty easy to imagine NPG No Possible Gain and would tend not to do it. But that’s just me.
Poking the popos is usually not recommended. They have a Yuge book of rules to catch you up whenever they want.
Guy has too much time on his hands.
I think id have more fun at South Beach...
Ping
Cops park illegally, wrong, in weird places and manners because they need to be able to get to their car rapido of an emergency happens.
Needing your rifle right now and its parked 2 blocks away so the patrol car wouldn’t be nosed 4 feet into a red zone is not a good option.
Parking in the grocery store lot and taking 2 spots is done so when the radio crackles and you have to race to your car, frandma has not parked 6.5 inches from your driver’s door meaning you cannot get in the driver’s seat even from the passenger side because they have a car radio, in car camera system, a rifle and shotgun rack, and a computer all in the center console area.
This does not excuse parking in a grocery store handicapped spot when other spots or the fire lane is available.
But parking in weird ways or in manners that violate parking laws are typically for a good reason that is not recognizable to the non-cop.
That was my initial thought.
Yes he does.
“But Carr is far from a bomb-throwing, anti-cop anarchist.”
Maybe not,but he definitely needs a life.
Good lord !
.
it’s hard to respect an officer of the law when they break the law.
It just goes to show that 99% of parking laws are about revenue generation, not public safety.
If the cops don't get a ticket for illegal parking, then neither should anyone else. Otherwise, it's hypocritical, and creates an double standard.
And, even worse, many police do go speeding down the highway without their lights on, thereby creating a clear threat to public safety. I see them blow through stop signs 20 feet from my house all the time. It's just flat out wrong.
Police officers aren't above the law; they're not an elite class. I'm very supportive of this soldier's efforts to achieve consistency and accountability...
He is doing a public service, and I wish him well.
Police need to follow the rules. When they blantantly violate small rules, people assume that they will violate any rule or law that is incovenient to them.
They will assume that police cannot be trusted to uphold the rule of law.
It has horrible consequences for society.
I actually parked stupid in plain car once recently, blocking both handcapped spaces in a bank lot and sure enough grandma was being driven to the bank by her grandaughter (grandaughter was close to 60.)
Grandaughter put both hands up and gave me the look. I revealed my badge (I was in plain clothes) and finished my task.
After I was finished I went into the bank and apologized and explained.
You see....there was an armed (handgun) man who was wanted for assaulting a man and I had been trying to arrange via telephine for his surrender.
He was jerking me around and lying about his location. Bad luck for him he walked up and stood next to my passenger door as I was talking to him on the phone.
I had to give a complete description of him over the radio and then drive around through a parking lot and block traffic so that’s a responding units in marked cars would be able to arrest him without they’re backdrop if they had to shoot him not becoming a line of cars with innocent people waiting get shot on accident.
Now grandma and granddaughter have no way of knowing that even after I showed them my bad. And they probably would have been completely perturbed even after I had showed him my badge and they would have just assumed I thought I could do whatever I wanted because I was a cop.
But I took the time to go in and explain to them what was going on and that makes all the difference.
It is a shame that a lot of people look at the police and assume bad behavior when they just don’t understand why things are being done, but that’s the nature of the Beast. And I’ve always found explaining things to people one-on-one and politely usually makes things work out very well.
It would be great to wake up one day and have people look at the police doing things and assumed it was for a good reason, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
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Since August, Carr has sent at least 125 complaints, with photographs and details of where and when he found the illegally parked vehicles, to departments around Miami-Dade County. He’s been berated by some officers, ignored by internal affairs investigators, and, more recently, validated by the independent Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP), which ruled that 15 Miami Police Department cops had broken regulations.
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Seems he’s doing what they should be doing: policing themselves.
The whole ‘gotta get to the cruiser in case of emergency’ BS is just that.
They are law ENFORCEMENT officers....”Why doesn’t the public trust us?!” Physician, heal thyself!
Being a great nagger myself, when I decide to not nag, I consider it to be a secret gift to some lucky person who’ll never know how good they have it.
I am definitely not saying that police don’t speed for no reason sometimes, but the majority of time you see a cop driving fast they don’t have their lights on it’s because they’re trying not to alert the criminal that they’re coming into the area. Conversely if you see a cop driving really slow with his lights and a siren blazing is probably because there’s 15 people fighting in the street a few blocks away and he’s by himself and he wants them to break up and run away before he shows up and he’s giving him a heads-up he showing up.
“Now grandma and granddaughter have no way of knowing that even after I showed them my bad.”
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You didn’t !!!!
Oh,my.
.
Thanx for letting us know you think police are above the law.
I would disagree, and so would the law.
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