summary, I was fined $447.00 by an overzealous Officer Perales for pulling over to text my boss that I was running late. I had pulled over on Fairmount Ave., parked my car, turned the engine off and remained in my car for less than 5 minutes to text, when Officer Perales pulled up behind me but remained in his vehicle. I didn't know why he was behind me so proceeded to text my boss. Then he got out of his vehicle and walked up to my car and issued me a ticket for $61.00 for stopping next to a red zone--. I argued with him about the legitimacy of the ticket and asked him why he couldn't have just honked his horn or flashed his lights to indicate where I had pulled up and he responded with "so do you want me to give you an even larger ticket? you know I can do that if I want". I told him to please not do that and he said, "no, that's exactly what I'm going to do" and proceeded to walk back to his car and wrote me an additional ticket for $386. I filed a complaint with Police Chief Keith and Mayor Lyman who asked him to modify the ticket and to reissue the ticket with just one not both penalties. When I received the modified ticket Officer Perales had taken it upon himself to remove the initial $61 ticket, not the larger ticket issued in retaliation. After much research and legal counsel I was told that my only real recourse was social media--so here I am. El Cerrito is famous for this kind of police conduct and the conclusion I've reached is that its residents like too much the money their revenue boosting behavior brings to their lovely city (new city hall, lovely median strips) so just look the other way.
#2Author of original report
Sun, October 08, 2017
The higher ticket was given to me after I argued with the cop for giving me the initial ticket: it was for parking near a bus zone, not in it but near it. Let me guess, you're a cop too that gives these tickets out all the time because you're pressured to make money for your revenues starved City??
Robert
Irvine,#3Consumer Comment
Sat, October 07, 2017
So you are not denying that you violated the law. You are just unhappy that the officer didn't "cut you a break".
My guess that you arguing about the "legitimacy" of the ticket probably didn't help your case. As I am sure the argument wasn't "Oh sorry sir I didn't know can you please forget it this time". It was probably more along the lines of "YOU could have told me that I was parked wrong, I would have gladdy moved after I sent the text to my boss if only you flashed your lights at me'. SO I shouldn't be given this ticket for your lazyness..what do you do get a comission from each ticket?
Oh and how do I know that? By the way you wrote this post.
I wonder if they use body cameras? I bet the exchange would be quite illuminating.
By the way what was the higher ticket for?