It was after 9/11 and New York was financially unstable, due to the stock market drop. The police officers were giving out tickets tickets word repeated to everyone for the most obscene reasons. I guess it was to get more money for the goverment. I was a victim of this,period tillUntil this day I can't believe I had to pay for this.
I was in a public park minding my own business. more description here After a game forof basketball I was exhausted so I decided to have a sit down on a rail that was at the enterance of the park and thanthen an officer comescame up to me with a strange smirk on his face and tellstold me that I was improperly seated on goverment property. This suprised me and made me angry. more description here Of course I argued with him, I said " there are people all over New York that sits on railings". But he told me that he hashad to give me the ticket and if I was going to be a problem for him.comma He was going to charge me with obstructing police work. I finally gave up and looked at the ticket, which was 75 dollars! and I had to appear in court! As the officer was leaving I was really tempted to put the ticket to where it really belonged to, the trash can.
All of my friends told me it was unbelieveable and that this case was going to be throwenthrown out of court. It was easy for them to say because they were sitting on the rail with me and I was the only one who recieved a ticket.I wonder why? Now the problem was how to tell this to my parents, would they agree with me in being angry with that officer or would they just yell at me for doing something stupid. When I got home and broke the news to them they were furious at the officer. They never heard of anything like it. My mom said it was unjust and ridiculous, but we decided to just get it over with.
The court appearence date was a month away and I remembered that I had to skip school for this. I waited for hours before the judge called me to the bench. I still had hopes of the case being throwen out. Well I guess it was my unlucky day because it wasn't throwen out of court and the judge ordered the payment.
Well I guess I wasn't the only one, a couple of days later there was even a person who was fined for sitting on a milk carton in front of a store. It amissing words article on the New York Post. This was happening all over the city. The government comes up with laws that an average person has never even heard about as a way of giving you a ticket. One of my friends were even fined for pushing his bike on a subway train, but alot of these tickets were dismissed from court. I felt that the system toketook advantage of many people, including me. Now when I go to that park I am left with that horrible feeling that I got duped.
B-