LA Parking Chief to Step Down

Jimmy Price is leaving his post in the wake of two NBC4 LA investigations into misconduct among traffic cops in his department

Joel Grover - Los Angeles Times

Thursday, May 26, 2011


The longtime chief of LA Parking Enforcement is stepping down in the wake of two NBC4 LA investigations that found multiple cases of alleged misconduct among traffic officers including participat ion in the making of a pornographic film, soliciting prostitutes, shoplifting and punching a motorist.

Jimmy Price will officially retire on June 4 from the LA Department of Transportation, several years ahead of his planned exit, according to multiple sources within the department.

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$15 million in parking ticket revenue eludes Los Angeles, audit finds

Ari Bloomekatz - Los Angeles Times

April 26, 2011

A new Los Angeles audit focusing on chronic scofflaws finds the parking enforcement department is still missing out on revenue collection.

Despite aggressive parking enforcement, Los Angeles has gone easy on chronic scofflaws who rack up multiple unpaid parking tickets, with the city missing out on up to $15 million in revenue, a new audit has found.

The audit focused on parking violators with five or more unpaid tickets. Such violators are supposed to have their vehicles impounded or immobilized by a boot lock placed on one of the wheels.

But officials found that L.A. Department of Transportation parking enforcement officers did not take action against 73.5% of the chronic offenders they came across.

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LAPD officers who complained about ticket quotas are awarded $2 million

Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin - Los Angeles Times

April 11, 2011

A jury awarded a pair of Los Angeles police officers $2 million Monday after determining that LAPD supervisors had retaliated against the officers for complaining about alleged traffic ticket quotas.

Howard Chan and David Benioff, both veteran motorcycle officers with the department's West Traffic Division, sued the department in 2009, alleging that they had been punished with bogus performance reviews, threats of reassignment and other forms of harassment after objecting to demands from commanding officers that they write a certain number of tickets each day, according to the suit.

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L.A. parking enforcement officers wrongly issue tickets at broken meters

Maeve Reston - Los Angeles Times

March 11, 2010

After numerous complaints from constituents, Councilman Tom LaBonge asks Transportation Department to clarify the issue.

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Fines for red-light traffic violations jumped nearly 65% in L.A. County

Rich Connell - Los Angeles Times

February 05, 2010

In less than eight years, photo enforcement programs run by more than two dozen agencies across the county have added a new degree of efficiency to catching violators and capturing revenue.

In less than eight years, fines for red-light traffic violations in Los Angeles County have jumped nearly 65% from $271 to $446, about three times the region's rate of inflation, a Times review shows.

With traffic school fees, the total penalties now exceed $500.

Ever-vigilant photo enforcement programs run by more than two dozen agencies across the county have added a new degree of efficiency to catching violators and capturing revenue.

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L.A. looking at giving car owners 'the boot' after 3 or 4 unpaid parking tickets

My-Thuan Tran - Los Angeles Times

January 28, 2010

Los Angeles city officials say they would like to give cars "the boot" after owners rack up three or four unpaid parking tickets, instead of five as the law requires now.

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SUPERHERO SAVES PARKING TICKETS IN LOS ANGELES

PR Leap

May 26, 2007

Be on the lookout this summer for a superhero dressed in tights and a cape protecting the streets of Los Angeles and saving citizens from getting parking tickets. The Meterman Project, a feature documentary chronicling the epidemic of parking tickets in Los Angeles, is in full-swing and has begun preproduction.

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Parkingticket.com finds cities in violation

Matt Hines - cnetnews.com

October 6, 2004

Glen Bolofsky doesn't think you should necessarily have to pay your parking tickets, and he's doing something about it.

Years ago, the native New Yorker got sick of paying off the endless stream of tickets that he found pinned to his windshield. So, after running in circles to find the right methods to appeal the violations, Bolofsky decided to try to capitalize on his experience. In 1982, he started a company that sold a package of documents meant to help people navigate the frustrating maze of New York's parking-ticket appeals system.

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Ticket Masters : Courts: Hearing officers at city's experimental Parking Citation Adjudication Office on the Westside help resolve disputes in a low-key atmosphere.

Bob Pool - Los Angeles Times

February 16, 1995

irst, Edda Shurman Witt had to find a place to park.

The spaces out front along Pico Boulevard were all taken. In back, Vidor Drive was reserved for neighborhood residents with permits. And for emphasis, a white parking enforcement car was circling the block like a buzzard waiting for something to die.

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Carjacking

Author Unknown

Date Unknown

The criminal taking of a motor vehicle from its driver by force, violence, or intimidation.

The u.s. justice department categorizes the crime of carjacking as a "completed or attempted robbery of a motor vehicle by a stranger to a victim." Carjacking incidents emerged in increasing numbers in the 1980s and 1990s, after their initial appearances in Detroit. According to a report filed with the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 1999, an average of 49,000 carjackings occurred in the United States each year between 1992 and 1996. During this time, about half of all attempted carjackings were successful, though the most carjackings (84 percent) did not result in injuries to the victims.

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