So now this just happened 20 minutes ago. I was sitting down by the river near my home. Two officers showed up on bicycles and strolled right up to two men sitting about 50 feet from me. They walked directly up to them and started writing them a ticket, it took him about 10 minutes and then they biked away.
I went up to them after they biked away and was told they were given a ticket for drinking in a public place. The officers left them with all their beer still, even had a friendly exchange and carried on. The indigenous man who received the ticket told them that he’s never paid a ticket in his life and asked them why they were wasting their time. No one approached me to see what I was drinking only 50 ft away. I would assume someone called the police on these two men, who were calm and peaceful, and they were directed to go give them a ticket? It certainly wasn’t a random drive by.
This is another situation that begs the question about what is our policy around tickets? What is the actual point of doing this? And how could you possibly give a drinking in public ticket for this? It’s a nice day and the beaches and parks are full of people enjoying alcoholic beverages every single day in the summer normally. So why them? Why now? What are the goals of all these tickets being delivered? Why didn’t they approach me? It feels like there’s some sort of nefarious purpose behind the giving of tickets to people who aren’t paying them. It seems like it’s a good way to pad your call data so you can ask for more money? Or maybe it’s a way to keep the officers doing things because there isn’t anything for them to do?
Our police system is broken. Chief Davis is failing us. The police board has their heads up their own butts. We desperately need to reenvision policing in our city.