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 THE $3,500 PARKING TICKETby John Lee
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In January of 2000 my car disappeared from the loading dock area of my family's building downtown (the Lee Building beside the Great Southern Brewing Company). Phone calls to KPD, KPD impound lot, Sutherland Avenue Wrecking (who has the city contract for downtown and is owned by Mullins Towing) and Cedar Bluff Towing (contract for UT area plus various downtown companies) yielded a negative on the location of my Honda Accord. We then reported the car as stolen to KPD.
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Graffiti at the crime scene said "KPD Proves" in 6 foot high letters, plus personal information about myself was spray painted on the walls. No other cars were cited or towed from the alley, which usually has half a dozen cars parked there on a daily basis, often times completely blocking it. The name of the 2-lane road is Fire Street, so technically it is not an alley. It was presumably named after the two huge fires that occurred 100 years ago, though today the street is impassable to fire trucks because of the pedestrian Promenade Walkway built overhead which blocks ladder trucks from using their ladders. When the old Fowler Building was gutted in December 1999 (despite its location only a couple blocks from the fire station), fire trucks did not use Fire Street, instead parking their ladder truck on the upper deck of the adjacent parking garage, and partly because there are no fire hydrants. Fire Street is actually wider than Interstate I40/75 at its downtown demolition bottleneck.
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As a journalist reporting on the alleged car theft ring run by police and politicians (including the convicted fatal hit and run state senator Carl Koella) in Knoxville, Knox County (including sheriff Tim Hutchinson) and Tennessee (as reported in the Knoxville Journal and the News Sentinel), as well as the cover up of a local cop killing, I wondered if there was a connection in light of many other incidents of apparent police harassment (par for the course for investigative journalists). The news papers also reported on the recent murders of three police officers who planned to testify against the thieving police officers, and that when TBI agents raided coroner Dr. Randy Pedigo (a KPD gun instructor), shooting him in the back half a dozen times, they were not raiding him for doping and raping young boys (which he was convicted of), but searching for the murder weapon (among Pedigo's 100 impounded guns) used to kill a DOT cop (who stole cars with the sheriff as lookout, according to the sheriff's chief of detectives). I was sending out press releases to area news media at the time my car disappeared. One day before the towing, the Knoxville Journal phoned to ask permission to print my letter to the editor instead of remaining anonymous. My letter was published that next week, detailing allegations by KPD officers that the chief of police released two arrested (alleged) killers of cop Tony Williams, despite having the smoking gun and a signed confession. I also detailed new information about the cost and profit of the sheriff's air force, after speaking with the KCSD helicopter pilots.
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A couple of weeks prior to the towing, the Knoxville traffic court dismissed a traffic ticket against me written by KPD cop Bradley Anders (5201 Western Avenue, #419, Knoxville, DL #70050340, and the chief's "fast track" buddy) who crashed his cop car into innocent bystanders at least four times in his five years as a cop (his DMV record recorded no points). And he had the audacity to ticket me when I haven't crashed in over 20 years (so I'll ticket him right now). He also recovered $80,000 from a burgler, but it is questionable the money was ever returned to its rightfull owners, since there was no thank you note in his personnel file. (This is a different case than the $80,000 missing from burglery victims after KCSD deputies "investigated" the crime scene, as reported by the Knoxville Journal in April 2000.) I was the first person (and the 2nd person) in 11 years to request to copy such a file from the KPD Personnel Records department.
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Six weeks later, Sutherland mailed us a letter saying they had the car and we owed them $800, increasing at $100 per week. This letter was mailed 10 days past the legal time limit for notification, and one month past KPD's legal requirement for notification. The alleged reason for the tow was for parking in a "fire lane."
Sutherland Avenue Wrecking is owned by Billy "Moon" Mullins, an individual previously arrested for concealing stolen property. It is a violation of state law for wrecker operators to have a criminal record, and especially to be contracted with the city government of Knoxville.
I was not allowed near my vehicle without a notorized bill of sale, despite the case law declaring that was not required. When I finally got to my vehicle at Sutherland, the CD player and speakers were stolen as well as other personal belongings, and all doors were unlocked. One new tire was flat. Sutherland alleged the CD player was stolen before they towed the car, but the KPD tow in report contradicts that.
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Also, the KPD audio tapes ($35 x 2) from 911 dispatch located in the basement of the City County Building proved even KPD knew my car was legally parked, and the cop, Ryan C. Flores (4201 Western Avenue, #531, DL #75470495, 7-21-75) refused to tow it or ticket it. The dispatcher forced him to return to the scene and commit the crime of towing a legally parked vehicle. Eight hours later KPD and Sutherland denied they towed the car, and no tickets were ever issued for illegal parking. As of April 15, 2000, he car remained listed as stolen in DMV computer files, and continues to rot at Sutherland Towing Company with a bill approaching $2,000 for an alleged parking ticket (a ticket that does not exist in KPD computer files), $1,000 in stolen property and over $200 damage to my vehicle. As for damages for being denied use of my car, the cost of a rental car is calculated at $39/day. There were no parking tickets on the windshield of my impounded car. KPD officer Ryan Flores, the individual who authorized the towing of my car, knew that by failing to write my name on the Tow In Report (as required by KPD regulations and laws) despite checking the tag in the NCIC computer, KPD Wrecker Inspections would be "unable" to notify me that my car was towed (unless they made the effort to run the NCIC, too). This would be a great scam to steal cars.... It is curious that like KPD cop Andres, Flores also had poor scores on his personnel review reports, and was also a car crash magnet. On 18 September 1997, Flores helped kill a woman passenger and seriously injured two other women in an off duty crash on Western Avenue. On 6 May 1999, Flores was again involved in a crash on Central Avenue. It must be convenient to arrest a person for DUI to throw off contributory blame for the "accident," and to be able to control what gets written down on one's own crash report. Flores did receive his only Commendation after he helped arrest an armed murderer fleeing the Old City, yet his personnel records say, "Ryan needs to be more into the Cop concept of the department," whatever that means. (Cops' jobs are statistically 2-times safer than retail sales or farming. Anders's most dangerous work injury was from a bee sting and Flores work injury was from being beaten up by another cop in baton training.) It is suspicious that out of 400 KPD employees in a metro population of half a million, both Anders and Flores live in the same apartment complex (Waterford Village), especially since one works West Sector and the other Central Sector.
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KPD refused to arrest anyone at Sutherland Wrecker for stealing my car stereo, despite the testimony of a KPD cop and the confession of all KPD management involved that a theft did clearly occur. KPD did send a cop to Sutherland to check the VIN number and removed the vehicle from the DMV's stolen list (4.5 months after the towing of my legally parked car). On April 27, a civilian Wrecker Inspector, Jack Barnes, from the KPD Impound lot intercepted me at Sutherland before a KPD cop could fill out a stolen property report on my CD and other items. The inspector refused to look at any of my 911 transcripts or any other documentation proving a crime was committed by Sutherland (and KPD). He, like all the other KPD employees, was also shocked at the extreme cost of my tow bill. About one month later, Barnes was reportedly suspended for 30 days (without pay) for allegedly "cussing." The newspaper reported that this was most unususal since Barnes has avoided reprisal despite cussing like that for over 20 years. I wonder what he was cussing about, and to whom? Another coincidence?
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While this towing situation is relatively infuriating to me (I'm a former legal investigator so I've worse), it is perhaps not as devastating as it would be to most folks, since I have three other vehicles to commute with. Therefore I have the option to let my "stolen" car sit while a legal battle takes place. I've also caught a protected police "informant" who stole another of my car stereos, so I already know that thieves employed by the government are not uncommon. Heck, I even find such a legal spectacle as intriguing to me as LA Law (or whatever legal drama is in style) is to a couch potato. Football is not the only spectator sport in Knoxville. Most people, however, depend on their one vehicle for their daily survival, and would be unable to fight an illegal tow bill. Most folks don't yet understand the rules of the game, and thus can never hope to win. "If you want to play with the big boys, you have to know how to play the game" (as a US Air Force JAG attorney once threatened me during a corruption investigation ordered by Congress and instigated by myself that ultimately resulted in the closing of RAF Upper Heyford airbase in England).
Jeff Foxworthy says:
As of October 8, 2001, my car was still under false arrest in car jail for a total of nearly two years so far. Click here to nominate this story for the Guiness Book of World Records.
CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FILED IN KNOXVILLE FEDERAL COURT ON DECEMBER 20, 2000
FEDERAL CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT
AFFIDAVIT OF PROBABLE CAUSE FOR CRIMINAL COMPLAINT - THEFT OF SECOND CAR!
INDEX OF PUBLIC RECORDS, TOWING LAWS, TOWING LAWSUITS, TOWING ARTICLES
Spin control in the local media is a powerful weapon for elites to control the masses (especially in a representative "democratic" republic (one man, zero vote for individual laws). Misinformation (bait and switch salesmanship) can effectively manipulate a news story so that a criminal can come out smelling like a Good Samaritan. A front page article on May 26, 2000, of the Knoxville News Sentinel illustrates such a scenario with the headline, "Man Loses Job, Home Over Car Tow--Towing Firm Manager Has A Heart." A cynical citizen might suspect this article was a clumsy effort by otherwise professional "journalists" at damage control from this Crime Busters web site (which was previously emailed to most of the reporters at the Knoxville News Gateguard, er, Sentinel). As Jim Balloch, author of the story told me, "The wrecker service suggested to the guy whose car was towed that he call us. We can't, of course, do a story on everybody who falls between bureaucratic cracks, but in this case, we felt it was worth it because of the dire results (even though he partly contributed to the situation)."
Nelson Johnson, a 32 year old welder forced to live at the Salvation Army homeless shelter thanks to Cedar Bluff Towing and KPD, was photographed after being reunited with his car that was listed as stolen in the KPD computer on April 16, 2000. Dozens of calls over several weeks by Johnson to KPD were met with the response that the car was still listed as stolen, despite Cedar Bluff Towing covering their own asses by reporting the tow from alleged private property to KPD within legally required time limits. Eventually a car theft dick from KPD "solved the crime" and on May 8, 2000, notified the owner who already lost his job and home due to inability to drive to work. Johnson was thus unable to pay the hundreds of dollars in towing and storage costs for over 30 days of "impoundment" for a "parking ticket" (there was no parking ticket issued by KPD).
As Johnson complained (in an all too familiar tale of woe) to KNS, "I had been calling the Police Department about every other day, asking if it had turned up. It seems to me that somebody up there could have told me where it was. If they had just told me that they had it that day, I would have only had to pay the tow fee and one day's storage. I could have handled that. And I would not have lost my job." Presumably, KPD and the Knoxville law director, as well as Cedar Bluff Towing, were euphorically thankful to avoid a lawsuit from the homeless man. "All of this has just about broken my back. This will help me get out of this hole and back on my feet," the "happy" Johnson told Jim Balloch of the KNS. As KPD's highly paid spin meister Foster Arnett, attorney at law, explained to the public through his mouthpeice of the monopolistic KNS corporation, "If the gentleman had reported it to us right away when he saw the car out on the street, we could have recovered it for him right then." So it's not KPD's fault, then? As Cedar Bluff's manager with the wallet of gold confessed to KNS, (Johnson) "has not done anything wrong."
Unanswered questions to give a "balanced" story are (1) what was the name of the Texas Avenue business that called Cedar Bluff Towing, (2) was the car parked on private or public property, (3) was the business owner paid an illegal kickback from Cedar Bluff Towing, (4) who were the KPD officers who told Johnson his car was not towed, (5) whether Johnson was coerced into signing a waiver of his right to sue on condition of getting his car back, (6) whether Johnson has retained the services of an attorney and if so, the name of that attorney, (7) interview that attorney or if no attorney is retained, then interview an expert in consumer rights law. Inquiring minds might want to know.
This is not exactly an isolated case. Jim Cogdill Dodge in Knoxville got a tow and storage bill from the police impound lot for over $3,000 after they were billed for a stolen car that was "recovered" and sat unannounced on the impound lot for three years. After Cogdill threatened them with media attention, the bill was dropped and the depreciated car returned. It was unclear whether the car was insured or not, since used vehicles that a car dealer owns often do not have collision or theft insurance coverage. Around that time, former Knox County sheriff Joe Jenkins was ramming gates and stealing vehicles from car dealers, and he was eventually arrested and convicted for some of those crimes. Also, the current Knox County sheriff Tim Hutchinson also was using his cop car as a lookout post while his convicted cop killing buddy stole cars, according to the sheriff's own chief of detectives quoted on the front page of the Knoxville News Sentinel just before the GOP sheriff's election victory. What's wrong with this picture?
Private property is another lucrative fishing hole for Knoxville's towing corporations, as anyone who lives, works or plays in the Ft. Saunders area knows. One example involved a general manager of a store on Cumberland Avenue. Twice he was towed from his store's parking lot where he was parked in the area labeled for "management only." Some nights were so bad, he said, that when four managers left for the evening only one car was remaining (I guess Cedar Bluff Towing was generous in allowing someone to drive them 20 miles to pay $100 each). The GM recalled how it is a regular occurance for managers to drive their patrons to Cedar Bluff Towing to pick up the customers' cars, which also were legally parked in metered spaces. One incident with the GM involved the extortion of an illegal "set down fee," which a KPD car theft detective declared was a clear cut example of car theft.
Carlene Malone of the Knoxville City Council detailed this crime, based on tape recorded testimony (along with countless other victims of tow criminals) that was used to finally set up the legally required Towing Commission. Malone told how tow companies bluffed and dodged legal limits on fees charged for "nonconsentual tows" when tow companies alleged nonconsentual tows from private property (parking lots) were "consentual" tows, which allegedly have no limit on fees. This particular crime involved a man and his family complaining to Cedar Bluff Towing about an outrageous fee, and in reprisal Cedar Bluff Towing padlocked the man, his wife and his children inside the facility and would not allow them to leave until the illegally inflated bill was paid in cash. Malone and her family coincidentally suffered two vehicles burned via arson, the only such arsons seen in the past ten years by Knoxville Fire Department and University of Tennessee police.
Another amazing story also involved Sutherland, who was caught red handed stealing a dental patient's car with 15 minutes left on the meter. When the criminal tow truck driver attempted to extort an illegal "set down fee" the vehicle owner pulled a (registered) gun and declared he would not pay such extortion. The tow truck driver lowered his car and left without collecting his illegal fee. The vehicle owner did not attempt a citizen's arrest even though he had every legal right to do so. No police officer was called. (This guy needs to contact me ASAP.
Attorney Joe Levitt, disgusted at the outrageous and illegal towing practices committed in downtown Knoxville, in addition to the outrageously expensive parking lots, sought a creative solution to commuters' dilemma. Through the grapevine of his contacts within KPD, it was revealed that cops were officially under orders to not ticket illegally parked vehicles owned by construction workers. Since downtown Knoxville tends to look like a bombed out Dresden, Germany, at the end of World War II, perhaps the city government actually cared about improving its image. (Hollywood's Bart Simpson immortalized the blight that remains of Knoxville's former World's Fair glory, though mayor Victor Ashe failed in his quest to emulate Bart's toppling of The World's Largest Golf Ball On A Tee, settling on merely closing it to 100,000 annual visitors.) Anyway, Levitt purchased a junky old car for himself and tied a ladder to the roof, the better to impersonate a construction worker. For a period of time he succeeded in his chirade, parking wherever he pleased without ticket or tow.
Eventually, a multi-agency task force tracked him down. Back before constables were banned in Tennessee, a constable and an agent from Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) discovered Levitt's parking crime. In retaliation, the two cops attempted a crime of their own by an unconstitutional towing which is felony car theft. Levitt returned to his car before the crime was completed, and explained to the cops the error of their ways.
The crooked cops, alleging "resisting arrest," prepared to assault and handcuff Levitt. However, wily Levitt was too sharp for the dim cops and turned the tables, using the cops' own handcuffs to handcuff the cops. Levitt then made a citizen's arrest and escorted his prisoners to the county judicial commissioner (as required to issue a probable cause affidavit and prepare an arrest warrent). The amused commissioner through all of them out of his jailhouse office, refusing to enforce the law of the land. At least the attorney avoided a parking ticket and tow bill, as well as avoiding a dull day.
You can add your own story in the FORUM on the home page. Thousands are illegally towed in Knoxville every year. You are not alone. For example, entire parking lots on UT campus are cleared of 25 cars (students parking in abandoned staff lots). This is government property, not private property, so 3 tickets in 4 hours are required before that is legal. Anything less is car theft. Only crashed cars are allowed to be towed to towing corporations. Cars towed for alleged parking crimes must only be towed to one of KPD's two government impound lots.
Sam Kinnison says:
While my story is an extreme example, there are actually many worse ones, since my car eventually turned up. Possibly hundreds or thousands of cars have disappeared, since 1,400 cars are stolen in Knoxville every year. I do not have Knox County figures, but a former sheriff of Knox County, Joe Jenkins, was convicted several times of car theft worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed his cocaine hobby (which he no longer got "free"). At any rate, my case may become the spearhead for a class action case which will benifit hundreds or thousands of other motorists towed illegally in Knoxville. I don't know about you, but when a criminal robs me of hundreds or thousands of dollars, I'm not going to turn the other cheek. I'm going to prosecute and try to get my money back. I can't afford to give my money away. I give way too much to the government in taxes already, and I don't feel I get value for my buck, especially when it comes to "law enforcement." And I'm doing something about it.
"Selective enforcement" of a non existant parking law appears to be the case here, implying a criminal examply of police harassment and stalking. I've also nearly been "accidentally" rammed by police cars on four recent occasions. (Cops are trained in a "public safety" ramming technique called the "pit maneuver.") A KPD car passed me from behind while 2-feet inside my lane, a Blount County cop nearly hit me head on while 3-feet inside my lane, and a THP and another KPD car nearly sideswiped me at extremely high speed on the Interstate while cutting from the middle lane to the shoulder lane. Thanks to my racing honed instincts I'm barely startled by such shennanigans. Cops from various agencies follow me around and when a phone call is involved, cops meet me at my destinations to just sit and watch me (verified by eyewitnesses). Punitive damages are awarded in less than 0.01% of lawsuits. The test for punitive (punishment) awards is very strict and requires proof of malicious behavior. By punishing a criminal organization, a civil prosecution serves the public by reducing the incentive for predatory crime. My case qualifies, with KPD and Knox County 911 Dispatch ordering the towing a legally parked car, with Sutherland participating in this car theft crime and then stealing $1,000 of personal belongings, with all organizations refusing to comply with legal requirements for notification or prosecution of the stereo thieves. Punitive damages are triple the actual monetary damages. This includes physical and emotional damages (trying using a hidden tape recorder on cops inside a prison bunker and reported torture chamber cum museum of horrors), hundreds of hours in investigative expenses and legal fees. In other words, my 1990 Honda Accord is literally worth over $100,000 to me. Reimbursement for loss of use of the car is calculated at $39/day (average cost of a rental car), so with punitives added in my "impounded" (stolen) car is worth $1,000 a week to me (take my other legally parked car, too, please!!!). Not too shabby a paycheck for "working a part time job" investigating this case while attending college for one semester. Everyone who joins a class action will likewise receive triple damages, meaning that a $150 "parking ticket" will be worth perhaps $450 (depending on whether attorney fees are subtracted or added to the final verdict or settlement). I've done the hard work, all the other class plaintiffs have to do is show up on payday and cash their checks. Money is good. Revenge is icing on the cake. So you see, you can have your cake and eat it too. And we can all live happily ever after. Frankly, police reprisals are the best compliment an investigative journalist can receive. It's so much more intense than a plaque.
Can you imagine working at the following company? It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:
29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
3 have been arrested for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are current defendants in lawsuits
In 1998 alone:
217 traffic violations
Over 100 were stopped for drunk driving
3,000 unpaid parking tickets were issued
Can you guess which organization this is? Give up? Scroll down for the answer...
It's the 535 members of your United States Congress. The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line. By claiming "Constitutional immunity" our political overseers avoid criminal prosecution for all traffic crimes. These are only statistics for Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland police files, and do not reflect traffic crimes committed in other jurisdictions.
PS: This is not a joke.
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