{"id":1447,"date":"2006-08-22T08:07:25","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T16:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/08\/traffic_cops_really_need_something_better_to_do.html"},"modified":"2006-08-22T08:07:25","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T16:07:25","slug":"traffic_cops_re","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/08\/traffic_cops_re.html","title":{"rendered":"Traffic Cops Really Need Something Better To Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

A priest gets a ticket for double parking while trying to administer last rites<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A Brooklyn priest got slapped with a $115 parking ticket after he rushed into a hospital to administer last rites to a dying woman, the Daily News has learned.<\/p>\n

But even after the Rev. Cletus Forson pleaded his case to a traffic judge, the city refused to throw the summons out.<\/p>\n

“If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad,” Forson said yesterday.<\/p>\n

“It disturbs me as a priest and as a human being,” added the priest, who has served at St. Andrew the Apostle Church on Ridge Blvd. in Bay Ridge for nearly three years.<\/p>\n

Forson got hit with the ticket July 26 about 9:30 p.m. for parking in a No Standing Anytime zone in front of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old Catholic priest, who is originally from Ghana, said he knew the spot was technically illegal but felt he couldn’t risk wasting time continuing to look for a better spot.<\/p>\n

He had just received a call from a panicked parishioner desperate to find a priest to administer last rites to her elderly mother. Forson, who was sick in bed with the flu at the time, said he even checked in with a nurse before leaving and was told there was no time to spare.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t get any parking,” said Forson. “It is my obligation to get there and administer to the needs of the sick.”<\/p>\n

Forson placed his official clergy parking permit on the dashboard — which reads “Clergy on Call” — and said he was inside for less than 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

“It’s not about the money,” said Forson. “It creates the feeling that if somebody is sick, nobody should go. I don’t think that’s right.”<\/p>\n

Forson appealed the ticket, but Administrative Law Judge Michael Ciaravino refused to back down.<\/p>\n

“Respondent’s claim that vehicle was parked while he, as a pastor, was attending to a patient at a hospital is not a valid defense to the violation,” wrote Ciaravino in the July 28 decision. “Guilty.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The only thing better would have been if an ambulance pulled up and got a ticket for being double parked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A priest gets a ticket for double parking while trying to administer last rites: A Brooklyn priest got slapped with a $115 parking ticket after he rushed into a hospital to administer last rites to a dying woman, the Daily News has learned. But even after the Rev. Cletus Forson pleaded his case to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,53,11,55,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brooklyn","category-jerk_move","category-law_order","category-thats_an_outrage","category-tragicomic_ironic_obnoxious_or_absurd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}