Embarrassing public exposure can await those who break the law
Date: 1/13/2010
" 'So what's the sense of a disabled placard if I cannot park here and pick up my mom?' asked Jess. 'She's still in the mall.' Just seconds later, when asked again where his mother was, Jess said his brother had picked up their mother already."
DMV investigators with Disabled Person Parking Placard enforcement detail have been receiving some nice help in their jobs from local ABC-TV affiliate Channel 7 in Los Angeles, which has been commendably tenacious in helping expose handicap parking scofflaws to a wider public. Its news team has run two stories on the problem, both of which can be viewed at the links below and the first one on the CSLEA main page.
"It brings out the anger in them in terms of getting caught," said DMV Deputy Chief Vito Scattaglia to one reporter. Indeed, most the people recorded on the two Channel 7 News segments were caught borrowing some relative's handicap tags. Fines for getting caught run between $250 to $1,000.
The first video below and on the CSLEA main page follows AMVIC Vice President Ken Ehrman and fellow investigators Sandy Fiore, Gloria Mercado, Christine Ehrman, Abilio Lopez, and Ken Holt along for the ride.
"This is a great story that needs to be told more frequently," said CSLEA President Alan Barcelona, a former DMV investigator, "and I commend the Channel 7 news team for following through and staying on it. This is a good example of the valuable public service TV news provides. I also want people to know that in addition to the work our DMV investigators were recorded doing here, they all probably came off of or moved right on to cases dealing with counterfeit-license manufacturing or identity theft, and a few went on to local, state, and federal task forces on homeland security, of which they have become a big part of since 9/11. Furthermore, our DMV investigators are often asked by local police departments for assistance in tricky undercover cases where their own officers might be too known or too compromised. Add to it all their highly specialized training in areas no other law enforcement officers has, and it's quite clear how valuable they are to the public safety of Californians. Something I would hope policymakers cherish and find indispensible even in tough budgetary times."
For more information:
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7205168
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6559349
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