A viral video is shining the spotlight on what some drivers worry could be a troubling problem with the city of San Diego’s Parking Enforcement tactics.
A San Diego-area couple says a parking enforcement officer gave them what they’re calling a fraudulent ticket before their meter expired.
The couple parked on the 1400 block of Island Avenue to run into the bakery to pick up their order. When they came out, they found an $85 ticket on their car.
They timestamped video from their car’s cameras, showing a parking enforcement officer mark their car’s tires. Then, just two minutes later, he reverses and gives them an $85 ticket, before a receipt shows their meter expired, just after one Saturday afternoon.
“I was extremely upset, personally,” Vanessa Pearce said. “For me, it was an obvious mistake.”
The Pearces tried rectifying that mistake on the spot, with the parking enforcement officer who was just up the block. As Vanessa Pearce was talking to him, she says her calm turned to frustration.
“I want to appeal right away. They will tell us the video is not correct. We were not here,” Vanessa Pearce could be heard saying on camera.
When she told him they were wrongly given a ticket, he said otherwise.
“He immediately responded saying that we parked over two hours in that spot and that he had marked our tire earlier in the morning,” Vanessa Pearce said. “I believe he said between 8 and 10 a.m.”
Remember, their car’s cameras record its surroundings. The couple showed NBC 7 video of them at Fiesta Island with their dogs during the time the officer said they were parked in the East Village.
“The attitude slowly started to change once he saw we do have all this video evidence. And then he was a little more cooperative,” Donald Pearce said.
In a statement to NBC 7, a San Diego police spokesperson said the officer has worked in that capacity for two months, an internal investigation has been launched and the citation dismissed.
NBC 7 asked the Pearces if they think it’s one bad apple or if they think this is a result of what’s going on in the city, where they’re trying to make up this $250 million budget.
“I’ve been wondering, and what I would like to uncover is what sort of pressures would the city or the department be placing on these individuals to where they would feel the need to falsify evidence like that to generate these citations,” Donald Pearce said.
As other San Diegans comment on the post saying similar parking incidents have happened to them, the Pearces say they hope going public will help others.
“We kind of feel like we have a responsibility to make the public aware of what is going on, and this might be a more widespread issue, unfortunately,” Vanessa Pearce said.
A spokesperson for the police department says if you feel like you’ve been wrongly ticketed, you can appeal online.
NBC 7 followed up with the city of San Diego and police to ask about parking citation quotas but have not yet received a response.
State law prohibits setting mandatory arrest or citation quotas.
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