Washington, D.C. is overrun with ticket cameras. They even have ticket cameras installed on their street sweepers. The city has also been criticized for ticketing motorists in their own driveways. Over a six-year period, the District has issued more than 500,000 citations and $32 million in fines via automated tickets.
As far as photo enforcement tickets are concerned in the District, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier tells WTOP the Metropolitan Police Department has mailed out more citations this year than ever before.
“Year to date, for red light cameras, 81,249 tickets and 489,892 speed camera tickets issued so far,” said Lanier on WTOP’s Ask the Chief program Thursday.
There’s a good explanation for why the numbers are up: There are simply more cameras watching drivers.
We’ve added some cameras and technology out there,” Lanier said. “Currently, we have 49 red light cameras, all of which are operating. We have 10 fixed and 12 mobile radar units.”
See, D.C. is like an immature teenager. It wants, wants, wants, but doesn’t have the budget or tax base to afford. It wants to dole out entitlements to citizens who won’t work. It thinks it’s entitled to have a world class baseball team and the $610M baseball stadium to go along with it. It wastes money here, it wastes money there. All the while the critical infrastructure is falling apart. Schools are in disrepair and the roads will rattle your cars suspension to nothing in a few years. How do you feed the never-ending appetite of a city that can’t budget within its own means? Why you install these traffic devices to shake even MORE money from your citizens and the tourists who visit daily. Every few months DC tries to bring up the idea of taxing commuters from Maryland and Virginia. When will this madness end? Can’t congress swoop back in and take responsibility for the city once more? You know, how the Constitution says the city should be run?
The victim and suspect both worked in concessions at the stadium. The suspect apparently stabbed the victim in the kitchen area of the Presidents Club, a VIP section, at about 8 p.m., about an hour after the Washington Nationals and Florida Marlins game began, police said.
The facts are unknown, we don’t know what caused this or even if the knife was brought into the park or was one of the kitchen knives used in the Presidents Club. I wish the victim a speedy recovery.
A man with a handgun forces a woman into the trunk of her 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. The broad daylight carjacking/abduction occurred in the parking garage at the Franconia-Springfield Metro station. Surveillance video from the Metro parking garage may have captured what happened. Police are working to get and examine that video.
Police have an extraordinarily difficult job, they can’t be everywhere and they certainly aren’t around when most serious crimes occur. Smart criminals case the area and make sure they have a safe operating environment before “going to work” (criminal activity is after all their job, see?). None of the security measures WMATA implemented worked that day, and now after the fact Metro is going to review the security cameras to figure out what happened. This is the same as the police drawing a chalk line around your cold dead body. They didn’t/couldn’t protect you, they arrived at a later time to clean things up and perform an investigation. How could this be different? Well for starters I have NEVER seen a transit police employee patrolling a parking garage. In fact, I’ve never seen any Metro employee in one of the garages I frequent. Why? Where are the police? They certainly weren’t watching the security cameras when this woman was stuffed into her trunk or they could have stopped this crime.
Step one: Get the transit police out on foot patrol in the garages. There should be at least one officer (or other Metro employee) on patrol in every garage at all times Metro is operating.
Step two: Metro riders must take their protection seriously. Buy a handgun, learn how to use it properly, and get a concealed handgun permit.
The Metro web page says customers can request a Metro employee escort them to their vehicle. I suggest until Metro provides appropriate security inside their garages those who cannot defend themselves use this option.
The Newport News lawmaker could have come clean three weeks ago when questions first emerged about his hiring. Instead, he provided a self-serving account of the circumstances, insisting he had no communication with ODU officials about the post until after the budget was adopted. E-mails say otherwise.
So here we have Phil Hamilton using the state budget, our tax money to create and fund a job for himself. This behavior is not what Virginians should accept from elected officials and I hope the voters of Hamilton’s district throw his ass out in November.
Fairfax County Schools security guard Wesley Cheeks needs to be reminded what that “Bill of Rights” thing is all about. Watch the video below and then read the email from David Codrea for complaint instructions. If I were in the protester’s place I would have continued my Constitutionally protected free speech and been arrested. This is not saying I’m for or against the speech topic, this is a liberties issue for me.
