Ticketing Media Drivers

Well. We seem to have hit a nerve. And a nerve that proves you can't get two coppers to agree on anything - even where to eat lunch. Comments are running slightly in favor of NOT writing tickets to newspaper truck drivers. The only trouble is the reasons being given not to write them. A sampling:

1. I say write them until they give us a break on something.
2. correct me if im wrong but dont they have CDL's?
3. If you are that big of a jagoff that you cant find someone better to lock up, then you should think about a different line of work.
4. The drivers are doing their job, they don't write articles, Jesus you guys are brutal,
5. but they give us free papers without question

And then someone accuses us of hitting an all time low with this "absurd idea" and then goes off on a rave about how "I took an oath to uphold the law of this city without regard to race,sex,class or whatever" conveniently forgetting that someone has just broken the law in front of him. Way to sabotage your own argument, dude. Responding to the sampling of quotes though:

1. This smells like extortion, no matter how unintentional
2. This waives the inherent higher level of responsibility that comes with a CDL (George Ryan's office selling CDL's notwithstanding).
   
3. We didn't say "do it to be a jagoff." We said we'd do it to send a message to the media. And like it or not, traffic is part of our job.
4. Their job doesn't involve breaking traffic law. As someone else countered, on the way to the generals, many soldiers will go down.
5. The most popular excuse by far, free papers.

A lot of it was tongue-in-cheek swipes at other comments, at us, at the system in general. But stripped down to its bare bones, you are selling out your badge, your oath and your job for a fifty-cent piece of recycled newsprint. You think that driver is giving you a paper because he likes you? Hell no, he's doing it so you DON'T write him that ticket at 0300 hours when he blows two lights, makes an illegal turn in the intersection and blocks traffic while delivering a rag that makes money painting you with the same mud as the bar beaters, SOS cops, and every other jagoff who sullied the badge we wear. If that driver gives away 20 papers (he'll probably give away less than that) in a shift and commits 20 traffic violations along the way (and he'll do WAY more than 20 violations), he's gotten a free ride for $10. Quite the deal, eh?

We don't expect everyone do what we'd do. We don't expect everyone to agree with our reasoning for how we do the job. Some guys do traffic. Some guys do dope. Some guys sleep all night. But if we had 100 guys write 100 tickets over the course of a week (state charges only), we're going to have an impact because the Teamsters are going to go to the Sun Times and bitch.

And maybe next week, we start writing to some advertisers.