When Boston Police park at HQ, regular rules do not apply

The Boston Globe reports:

Illegal parking in a handicapped spot is no trifling matter. Boston issues 11,000 tickets a year, each of which carries a $120 fine and often a $93 towing charge. And it is not uncommon for passersby to loudly rebuke able-bodied drivers who use parking spots reserved for the disabled.

But violators who use the 11 handicapped-designated spaces in front of Boston Police headquarters are immune from any sanction at all - or even a sidelong glance from the scores of police officers who enter and leave the building every day, according to Globe observations over the past two months.

One repeat scofflaw: the driver of a Toyota Corolla registered to Irene Landry, the city's supervisor of Parking Enforcement, who oversees the 194 parking enforcement officers who write 1.3 million tickets a year.

When a Globe reporter called Landry's office on Feb. 10 to ask about the Toyota, Landry was stunned. "I will investigate," she said. "Trust me when I tell you that."

Within five minutes of that call, her son Anthony, a police dispatcher, and three other police officials hastened out of Police Headquarters in shirtsleeves, got into their illegally parked cars, and drove away.

They sure are special!