GUY GETS TICKET FOR BROKEN WINDSHIELD AS HE PULLS INTO REPAIR SHOP

Somebody threw a rock through the windshield of a car owned by Nick Berlin of Denver, Colorado. Berlin made an appointment at a local auto glass shop to have it replaced. Just as he was about to pull into the auto glass shop, a Sheriff’s Deputy pulled Berlin over and issued him a ticket for an “unsafe vehicle.” The incident happened back on August 19. Records corroborate Berlin’s account of when and where he was issued the ticket and his set appointment at the shop. The ticket shows the officer wrote up the citation at 3:39 p.m., just minutes after Berlin’s set appointment. The shop, Absolute Auto Glass, took a picture of the windshield showing he had plenty of visibility on the driver side. Local news tried to get the Sheriff’s Department to explain the reasoning behind the ticket, but they would only say the ticketing officer has his own “discretion.” Shop owner David Sprague said he would cover Berlin’s $46 dollar ticket if the judge doesn’t dismiss the citation.
* Is this really the best time for police officers to be pissing people off?
* Local news wanted the Sheriff’s Department to explain the reasoning here, but “We’ve got a quota of monthly tickets to write, and a quota of monthly dollars to bring in” isn’t great PR.
* “To protect and to serve and to generate income for the municipality.”
* It was probably a cop who threw the rock threw the windshield in the first place.
* (Affiliates: Why do we sound angry? Because a cop friend once confirmed to us the existence of quotas, and what’s more, the highest ticket writer of the month gets an extra day off. See Phone Topic below!)
* Fortunately, that $46 is just what Denver needed to balance out this year’s budget.
* Sure, the judge will probably dismiss it, but you’ll have to sit there for a few hours waiting for your case to come up.
* Then halfway through you’ll say, “Screw it. It’s 46 bucks. I’m outta here.”
* Sorry, I was projecting what happened to me in a parking ticket dispute.
* This guy’s so upset he left Absolute Auto Glass and got a glass of Absolut vodka.
* PHONE TOPIC: We want some brave cop or relative of a cop or friend of a cop to call in and tell us what they know about ticket quotas and internal police reward systems for ticket-writers.