ticketA few days ago, Bwog was walking near the corner of 120th St and Amsterdam when we observed a police officer—a man by the name of Ma, presumably of the 26th Precinct—writing a parking ticket for a sporty black sedan.  We didn’t think too much of it, until we got closer and noticed that the owner of the car whose meter time had expired was actually ASLEEP IN THE FRONT SEAT OF THE CAR, and that the officer had simply failed to wake her up.  (Look closely at the photo, regrettably taken with a cell phone, and you can kind of make it out.)  Assuming this to be a mistake, we started up a dialogue.

Bwog: Sir?

Ma: Yes?

Bwog: I actually think the owner of the car is asleep in the front seat.

Ma: What?

Bwog: The owner of this car.  She’s asleep in the front seat.  You know that, right?

Ma: Yes.

Continue reading after the jump….

 


Bwog: Um…why don’t you just wake her up?

Ma: Sorry?

Bwog: I mean, instead of writing her a ticket.  It’s not like she abandoned the car or anything.  That doesn’t seem quite fair.

Ma: Hm.

At this point, the officer walked away from us, continuing to write the ticket, and turned his back as we took a picture of the scene.  An hour or so later, we called the station to report the incident in an effort to get the ticket stricken from the driver’s record—but, although the dispatcher agreed with us that the officer was engaging in an utterly unnecessary display of douchebaggery, he assured us that he was completely within his legal rights not to wake the car’s owner.  And so, we’re stuck.

Looks like this is what happens when real crimes don’t actually happen that often here. According to recently compiled Ivy League crime statistics, Columbia ranked lowest in 2004 among the Ivies in instances of both forcible sex offenses and burglaries, and fared comparatively well in most other categories—although, shockingly, we had one more motor vehicle theft in than Dartmouth.  Yowza.