Remember the good old days when you were taught the police were your friends? Now there are countless stories of cops who harass, taze, beat and shoot unarmed people. And politicians enact laws to punish those who dare to record cops doing it. Yes, it’s a dangerous job and there are predators, but this is all getting out of control. Here’s a case where most likely ticketing quotas, another blight, are to blame.
The police may not be ticketing for smoking in the parks, but they are still ticketing parker visitors for crimes like…eating a doughnut in a playground. Yup, this weekend the police gave two young women in Bed-Stuy summonses for eating doughnuts in a playground while unaccompanied by a minor.
Tickets for being an adult in or around a playground have been popping up fairly frequently lately—see the Inwood chess players—but instead of giving the offending citizens a warning and urging them to leave, the NYPD’s M.O. appears to be to hand out a ticket.
And remember when playgrounds were places to play and all you had to worry about was scraping your knee?
The times, they are a changing…….a few years back, I enjoyed taking my camera to the local parks and taking snaps of the kiddies playing around. With the telephoto, I was always 50 yards away.
Came a time when the harassment/”concern” by the mothers became too much to bear, so now, I go to the park, with my camera, but rarely take pictures.
Number of child rapes and abductions before I stopped taking pictures: zero.
Number of child rapes and abductions after I stopped taking pictures: zero.
…..and a lot fewer kiddies/mom’s in the park. Sad, because the parks are still excellent. I suppose they are mostly a jobs program for the grounds keepers?
Eating doughnuts in front of cops without offering them any? They’re lucky they lived.
This story needs a BS Meter just for the poor writing. Is it from a legitimate news source?
Seems legitimate to me. Did you check out the source listed above?
http://gothamist.com/2011/06/06/ticketed_for_eating_a_doughnut_in_a.php
I’m planning on retiring in a year. You mean I can’t go to the park and read, feed the wildlife and mind my own business?
The bad guys won and by bad guys I mean the gutless brainless wonders running this nation.
Laws are written by lawyers. ‘Nuff said.
Burn all of the law books and start over with all laws and penalties to lapse within 10 to 25 years unless revisited and renewed.
America, the land of the free..
Funny, back when I was a kid, there was a sign on one of the playgrounds that said “No adults unless accompanied by a minor.”
It was a joke of course.
How sad things have become when ordinary people enjoying the antics of children at play are assumed to be creeps.