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| - The officers of the Cleveland Heights Police Department are criminals. Or at least they were in 1999-2000, when I lived in adjacent Cleveland.
Back in 2000 the Plain Dealer did a story about how the Cleveland Heights PD was getting into trouble for issuing false parking tickets. As someone who read the Plain Dealer daily at the time and mainly used the bus to get around, I thought the story was funny. People were probably just complaining because the police were actually checking the meters, right?
Well, the day after I read that article--literally--my parents arrived for a visit. They had driven all the way from Southern California. I don't remember whether we were going to eat or see a movie, but we drove to Cleveland Heights and parked in a parking lot next to a drugstore. The parking lot had parking meters, and there was a CHPD officer sitting in his car in the parking lot. Because of this, I checked to make sure that I knew the parking-meter times. The sign clearly said that metered parking ended at the top of the hour (I don't remember whether that was six or seven), and it was 5:45 (or 6:45), so I put in enough change to get the meter past six (or seven) p.m.
When we came back to the car after having eaten, there was a parking ticket on the windshield. The ticket said we had failed to pay the meter, but I know that we hadn't. Being the argumentative person I am, I was prepared to fight my parents' ticket by going to court rather than having them mail in the check. But then I noticed something. Although the cop had written down the license-plate number correctly, instead of listing the state as California, he had listed Ohio. So I told my parents not to worry about it.
About two years later, my mom received a letter in the mail from the State of Ohio. The letter stated that because of an unpaid parking violation, a bench warrant had been issued for my parents. My mom called the Ohio DMV or whichever department it was and explained the situation. The helpful woman who answered asked my mom whether she planned to drive that particular car in Ohio in the coming year-and-a-half. When my mom said she didn't, the woman said that my mom could probably ignore the warrant, as it would expire soon.
My mom never paid, and my parents no longer own that car, so there's no chance of it getting impounded or them getting arrested in the Buckeye State.
But the Cleveland Heights Police Department abused (or used to abuse) its power. That's wrong.
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