Violation of Parking Laws, Establishes Precedence and Behavior by Example at the Isabella County Sheriff's Dept:
Parking Sets THE Example and the Standard...
(MCL 257.674) Prohibited parking; exceptions; bus loading zone; violation as civil infraction
MICHIGAN VEHICLE CODE (EXCERPT)
Act 300 of 1949
Sec. 674.
(1) A vehicle shall not be parked, except if necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with the law or the directions of a police officer or traffic-control device, in any of the following places:
(e) On a crosswalk.
(f) Within 20 feet of a crosswalk, or if there is not a crosswalk, then within 15 feet of the intersection of property lines at an intersection of highways.
When you have the gonads to park illegally and directly in front of the police station for years, what does this tell everyone? "Or in compliance with the law or the directions of a police officer." Or in compliance with the law??? Was the law modified just for Jennifer Wilson??? Isn't this the same as having the direction of the entire police department if this violation of the law is not only "not challenged" but allowed to continue for years and directly in front of the police station? Them are some awesome Cohunes Jennifer Wilson! In reward for all your hard work for the Sheriff's Department you have been granted permission and amnesty to break the laws that get in your way! What other pesky little laws are you exempt from having to follow due to your position there at the Sheriff's Department and the fact that you are in charge of payroll?
How many cops wrote a parking ticket for this vehicle? What would happen to a cop that wrote a ticket for and/or had this vehicle towed?
Oh!!!
There is the answer!
"Jen" does PAYROLL for the department!
Everyone hates the double standard but here it is! Staring you right in the face!Hey Jennifer, I'm sorry if this isn't your White Ford Explorer! It was an anonymous tip that told me that it was in fact your car but feel free to let me know otherwise. Click Here!
Administrative Assistant Jennifer Wilson provides administrative support to the Sheriff, Undersheriff and Jail Administrator. She maintains the financial records for the department including inmate housing, inmate medical, payroll, accounts receivable and accounts payable. She is also the program coordinator for contractual and grant programs such as inmate health insurance, secondary road patrol, marine patrol and budgeting.
Jennifer also provides technology support for jail booking software and records management software, as well as scheduling for road patrol, sergeants, detectives, special assignment employees and special programs such as boater safety.
So who is it that drives this vehicle?
I have been to the Sheriff's Department's physical location in Mount Pleasant, MI. a lot more than I would have liked to have been over the course of the last five months and every time I have gone there, at least five times now, I have noticed the same vehicle illegally parked on the street out front. This is undoubtedly a police officer's personal vehicle and most likely someone higher up on the food chain within the department because it would be a great place to park if it weren't right on top of the stop sign. Here are a couple of pictures I took the last time I was there. So what's my point you ask? To me this has come to symbolize the mentality of our police or in this case the Sheriff's Department.
An officer or some other figure of authority parks there every day with complete amnesty while breaking traffic laws. It has become this person's personal parking spot. Who is violating the law? I don't know yet but what if it is the Sheriff himself or the undersheriff himself? If it were one of the leaders of our Sheriff's Department, this would mean that the leaders of our police are setting the example that officers are above the law and or that the laws don't necessarily apply to them personally to the entire rest of the department and to the public that notices as well. I am not sure exactly what the exact violation is but everyone in the US that has a drivers license knows or should know that they would get a ticket of some sort for parking within 15 feet of a controlled intersection. This white Ford Explorer has been parked in the painted crosswalk every single day I have been there.
I have been an employer for over 20 years so I know for a fact and through experience that subordinates follow the examples set by their leaders or bosses. Every cop in the building knows that this vehicle is parked there illegally every single day yet does nothing to enforce the law because??? How many other unrelated people to the Sheriff's Department are aware of this that does nothing about it? There are the city cops, the street parking ticket writers, the fire department, the Tribal cops the state cops and even the people that paint the curbs! There is no yellow paint on that curb! Why is this do you think?
I am going to drive by again today and I will take a picture of the same vehicle or perhaps a different vehicle owned by the same individual and then I am going to take another picture of where only cops can park just to show that there is indeed room there. There is no way that a ladder truck from the fire department could make that turn at this intersection with that white ford explorer parked there. But there it sits every single day constantly reminding subordinates that it is ok to do what you want when it comes to dispensing and manipulating the law to suit your needs.
This arrogance really bothers me a lot. I don't know for a fact that leadership of the Isabella County Sheriff's Department owns this vehicle but I do know for a fact that it isn't a rookie Deputy's car because if it were a valid and lawful place to park it would be reserved for the employee of the month due to its location to the front door of the Sheriff's Department!
The owner of this white Ford Explorer is setting the example for his/her subordinates in that some laws can and should be broken to suit the personal agenda of officers employed to enforce the law and this logic is absolutely flawed!
We as citizens are supposed to make these type of allowances for law enforcement because we have been conditioned to? When we start making exceptions for the police, where do we stop? Our conditioning has come at the cost of our freedom and so very few of us out there even understand this! When my business was running strong and I was too busy to notice stuff like this, I did in fact not notice this kind of stuff and that doesn't make it right! Now that my family has become virtually destitute these things are all becoming apparent to me and it simply cannot be allowed to continue!
I would bet my next "Bridge Card" that that white Ford Explorer belongs to someone of authority in the Sheriff's Department. Someone that cannot or will not acknowledge that this display of wanton disregard for the law is on display every single day to the public and to their subordinates. This only serves as positive reinforcement that the police do not need to conform to the laws they have sworn oath to serve and protect.
I know that the act of parking illegally seems really petty to most of my readers but I ask you not to look at the act of parking itself but at the example it sets for all of the members of the Sheriff's Department. Every deputy at every different experience level is shown that once you have established yourself in law enforcement, these are the perks!
The illegal parking is just the only example that is purely visible to the naked eye! How many other perfect examples could be found by turning this rock over and taking a really good look at everything else that is going on in our police departments?
I think that it would have just been a simple matter of time before some other professional person with not quite so much to do these days and in this economy to become as outraged as I have become and to actually get involved with and do something about matters such these.
Just returned from Mount Pleasant 2:45pm Monday March 7, 2011 and YES the same white Ford Explorer was parked right where I expected it to be.
Instinctively the police look for immediate justification to their own action or cause and their excuse will make a lot of sense to some of us but nothing they say can justify breaking the law.
Very Hard for the driver of this car to see anything coming through the intersection with that white Ford Exploder parked at this corner.
Look at all of this private police parking!!!
Now that I have hammered this point to death I will be moving off this topic. If someone reading this page knows who actually owns this vehicle I would very much like to know! Thanks, and please don't guess or speculate! A picture of the owner getting into or getting out of this vehicle would be great!