Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

I received a $ 63 parking ticket while sitting in my car under the only shade tree on the block on a 100+ degree afternoon. There was a large Jeep parked in front of me when I pulled in. When the driver returned to his car and drove off I couldn’t see the parking restriction sign due to low hanging tree branches. There were two other parking restriction signs way down at the other end of the street, but I never drove down that way and did not see them.
The female «officer» saw me waiting in my car and wrote the ticket anyway. She claimed on the ticket that my VIN number was unreadable – that’s crazy. It’s prominently displayed on the dashboard. She just didn’t want to get out of her vehicle. She didn’t want me to see her, which I didn’t because I was going through my briefcase to prepare for a meeting.
I heard her vehicle behind mine (both of my windows were down) but assumed it was someone parking. The next thing I knew she pulled up alongside my car and proudly chirped «I just wrote you a ticket.»
When I told my clients what happened, they revealed that this glorified meter maid is well known on their street. They said she once gave a ticket to a guy on crutches, even as he hobbled to his car to move it before the no-​parking time restriction kicked in.
By the way, thanks for the heads up Jeep guy. I wondered why he looked over at me and laughed as he jumped in his own vehicle and pulled away. Hopefully she’ll get him next time. I was considerate enough to warn two others who also parked on the wrong side of the street. Clues would be nice – you know, like street sweepers.

Wrote me a ticket (a paying customer) while parked at a Metro station because my registration sticker wasn’t current. Every single day there is a LASD cruiser parked in the fire lane while the deputies ride Metrolink and write people tickets for fare evasion (I have the photos to prove it). The very day I received the parking ticket, I walked past 2 homeless people in Pershing Square Station divvying up about 20 stolen cell phones right under security cameras. Two days before there was a guy in Pershing Square station smoking a joint in the middle of the platform in the middle of rush hour. Unless revenue can be generated, the LASD is completely disinterested in doing their jobs. Worst police agency I have ever encountered.
LASD is hopelessly corrupt because EVERY SINGLE deputy I have ever encountered flaunts that he is above the law (a good example is the deputy who, after I politely said that as a paying customer I don’t appreciate being treated like a criminal every day, threatened to write me a fine because I was holding a cup of coffee on the subway platform — it was empty). I have never been arrested for anything, and have no criminal record. I wouldn’t help a LASD officer if he were dying in the street — probably just a ruse to write me a ticket for jaywalking. And as a voter, I will religiously vote against any further funding for this shameful department. From now until the end of time. Fuck the LASD.

I am writing this review for all of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department locations.
At 3:00am on Wednesday August 28, 2013, I received a $ 60 citation from officer V. Gomez for parking on my own lawn. Street sweeping is on Wednesday mornings so I park on my lawn so I can comply with city regulations. Due to the limited space of my home, the only option of parking my car on street sweeping days is on my lawn. I lived in my current residence for over 8 years and this is the first time I ever received a citation for this. My neighbors park on their lawn every Wednesday morning as well and it never seemed to have caused a problem for anyone. I wanted to contest the citation so I wrote a letter and sent it out.
UPDATE 9÷5÷13:
A week has passed and no letter of response came in the mail.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department has an option of checking the status of a citation online so I did. I entered my citation number onto the system but it says «Ticket number not on file». Their description says that: «Tickets may not be immediately available for payment after issuance. Typically tickets are available for online payment within a week from the date of issue. If your ticket does not come up in the system, check to ensure that the ticket number entered is correct and try again. If the ticket number still does not come up, please check on the issue date and ensure that at least a week has passed since the ticket was issued.»
It’s already been a week so I called the phone number provided on their website and a lady picked up the call. Before I had the chance to say anything, she requested my citation number and the amount of the citation. Following that, she also requested my name, address, and my vehicle information. At first, I just thought she wanted my information so she can verify that the citation belongs to me, but NO!!! What she did was that she used the information I told her over the phone to create a file and cite me for it. Nothing was on file because officer V. Gomez or whoever probably lost the copy of the citation or didn’t input it in the system yet. Having that said, she basically made a file for me over the phone and lured me in to make sure I pay, even though there wasn’t a file there before. The online payment system didn’t even say anything about what the violation was for. It simply stated the amount due and my name on it. What’s dumb is that I’m not even the registered owner of the vehicle, my uncle is. The citation has his name on it. So if there should be any name in the system, it should be my uncle’s name, not mine. Even if my letter for contesting was denied, I would’ve still paid for the fine. What really upsets me is what the lady did. It is wrong and shady of her to do that. I would’ve been fine if she used my information to verify who the citation belongs to but she didn’t. Instead, she used my information to create a file and charge me on the spot. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is a joke. As I said before, I lived in my current residence for over 8 years and never had a problem with parking on my lawn until this incident. If this was such a big issue, I would’ve received a citation every week from the local sheriff’s department in my city but I don’t. It was the end of the month when this citation was issued so I bet V. Gomez and his other desperate buddies just wanted to meet their quota before they get fired. The desperate cop issued several citations to people in my neighborhood that morning too, not just me.
The law enforcement in this country is a terrible joke, especially the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
I would give this government establishment a negative billion stars if I could.

This is for an incident that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was leaving Malibu and driving through Calabasas late one evening. I am unfamiliar with that part of LA and admitted that I pulled over near Pepperdine back and forth a lane ONE TIME because I was confused and the directions my GPS had given me (there are 2 different right turns in this area that is hard to explain).
10 minutes later, 2 cop cars have me pull over in Calabasas. The male cop asks me where I was going, where I was, and if I had been drinking that night. I told him I had a glass of wine around 9 PM (it was now 1 AM and I am 100% honest with what I drank…). From that, he assumed I guess I was driving drunk! He looked into my eyes with a light, had to follow the tip of his pen with my eyes, and he asked for my license. As I got him my license he saw I had prescription medication in my purse and wanted to see the bottles so I gave them to him. He asked me if I was currently on either medication (antidepressants and anxiety medication). I explained that I haven’t taken either medication in over a week (weened myself off the antidepressants, and the anxiety medication is just an as needed medication for panic attacks). He looked into my eyes again, told me they were dilated, and kept asking if I had more than 1 glass of wine and if I wanted to tell him again if I was taking any medication that evening (AGAIN NO AND I WOULD HAVE TAKEN A URINE AND BLOOD TEST IF ASKED!!).
He had me step out of my car and I had to do the standard DUI tests. I had to walk back and forth heel to toe 9x, had to count to 30 staring up, with my eyes closed, touching my nose, some bullshit like that, and had to answer more questions.
I should mention it was FREEZING that night, I was wearing a mini dress inside out (had a date that night and well…) and my hair and makeup was a mess (you figure out what I was doing on that date!). I have an anxiety disorder, was freezing, looked like I belonged on Jerry Springer, and beyond nervous due to this situation and I was thinking I would have to make a fricken phone call later that evening!
Finally they gave me the breathalyzer which I felt they should have given me in the first place. Guess how I scored? 0.00%!!! Yup, passed with flying colors.
I was standing outside in the cold, scared as hell for maybe 30 minutes. According to one of the officers, they got an anonymous call about me saying I was weaving in and out of lanes. This has to be related to what I mentioned earlier about the GPS, but that was the only time I did something like that. If you have ever driven on Malibu Canyon, you would know there is one lane going each direction and I never got out of my lane… Maybe Mel Gibson knew I was in town and well, I am Jewish…
The male cop insisted that my car smelled of alcohol. There was no alcohol whatsoever in my car, and there is no way my breath could have smelled of alcohol from a glass of low alcohol Rose from hours earlier…
He stated that I technically could get in the future a DUI from ANY medication that says the standard warning of «not recommended to operate equipment» even if appear completely safe on the road! He also kept insisting that my eyes were dilated.
They let me go finally and I had no ticket or anything. This was without a doubt one of the scariest, most random incidences of my life.
UPDATE:
2 months later I went to my eye doctor just for a regular exam and told her about this. She stated more than likely the cop had to say that my car smelled of alcohol as probable cause. I later discussed with her that he stated my eyes were dilated. She stated again more than likely, they weren’t and interestingly enough, if I was under the influence of my prescribed medications, my eyes would do the opposite of being dilated (whatever it is called).
Fuck the police. Most of them truly are the dumb jocks from high school who never grew up, are bullies, and like the position of power.