Cops, Rules, and Little People

From the Boston Globe:

Illegal parking in a handicapped spot is no trifling matter. Boston issues 11,000 tickets a year, each of which carries a $120 fine and often a $93 towing charge. And it is not uncommon for passersby to loudly rebuke able-bodied drivers who use parking spots reserved for the disabled.

But violators who use the 11 handicapped-designated spaces in front of Boston Police headquarters are immune from any sanction at all — or even a sidelong glance from the scores of police officers who enter and leave the building every day, according to Globe observations over the past two months.

One repeat scofflaw: the driver of a Toyota Corolla registered to Irene Landry, the city's supervisor of Parking Enforcement, who oversees the 194 parking enforcement officers who write 1.3 million tickets a year. [...]

The only ticket books seen by the Globe over the six weeks' observation were those that officers left on the dashboards of their cars — a time-honored signal to fellow officers. Others left uniform shirts hanging in back windows.

It's a pattern familiar to citizens in other big cities.