Jimmy Justice

Jimmy Justice on The Colbert Report

2011-11-16T06:06:00.000-08:00

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Jimmy Justice on The Colbert Report

2011-11-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

Watch me on the Colbert Report Tuesday November 15 on Comedy Central.

If you miss the show , you can watch it online the next day at www.colbertnation.com

Thank you,

J.J.

Jimmy Justice - more sanitation enforcement shenanigans

2011-10-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Justice Documentary Film

2011-10-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

I am happy to announce that the Jimmy Justice documentary film will premiere this Thursday night October 13th at 7:30pm at the Esquire Theater 320 Ludlow Ave , Cincinnati Ohio.

Traffic enforcement agent smoking on the job

2011-07-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

NYPD officer uses a squad car to run personal errands and parks illegally

2011-07-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

New Show On MSNBC

2011-04-09T09:08:00.001-07:00

Check your local listings... MSNBC has a new episode of 'caught on camera' called 'bad behavior' which features some of my videos and a new interview.

Thank you for your support.

Jimmy Justice gives testimony before the New York City Council

2010-11-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Justice shared some ideas with the City Council on how to make parking in New York City easier for the public during street cleaning times.

http://www.ny1.com/?ArID=128643

When Meter Maids Attack

2010-10-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Traffic Cop busted for abusing his lights and sirens on the way to Dunkin Donuts

2010-06-16T20:37:00.001-07:00

http://wcbstv.com/local/speeding.for.coffee.2.1756023.html

Traffic Enforcement Officer Violates Traffic Law While Running Personal Errands

2010-04-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

The Village Voice has picked me as the best vigilante of 2009

2009-10-21T19:34:00.001-07:00

http://www.villagevoice.com/bestof/2009/award/best-vigilante-1436344/

Nice article by Bob Sullivan of MSNBC's Red Tape Chronicles

2009-09-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

Cash-strapped cities pile on the parking fines

Posted: Monday, September 14 2009 at 06:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan

It’s the very definition of a bad day. No quarters in your pocket, the line at the post office is longer than expected or you need to grab lunch and don’t have time to circle the block and find parking. You run back out and get to your car just in time to see a parking officer pulling away after leaving a ticket on your windshield.

For want of a quarter, you now owe $50 to some government agency.

There was a time that such calculated risk-taking might have paid off. Odds were against a meter maid spotting your car at just the wrong time. Or perhaps you were good at talking your way out of tickets. No more.

Parking meters and meter maids have become less forgiving. Around the country, cash-strapped municipalities are turning to what's sometimes called a "curb tax" to shore up weak balance sheets. Cities are raising ticket prices, hiring more citation officers, turning to gimmicky technologies, even selling their parking systems and enforcement to the highest bidder, all in a desperate effort to shrink budget gaps.

"There's no doubt about it. Virtually every city has hired more ticket agents," said Glen Bolofsky, founder of ticket-beating site parkingticket.com.

Bolofsky said governments’ philosophy about parking tickets has radically changed. Where once local officials held onto a pretense that parking tickets were chiefly a deterrent aimed at safety or public convenience, police departments and elected officials now openly discuss citations as revenue stream.

That's obvious by looking at marketing materials from companies that sell parking and ticket collection services to local governments.

"For nearly 30 years, we've been helping cities and towns make money," croons Municipal Management Association Inc., which helps cities collect parking fines. At the bottom of each page is the company slogan: "Municipal Management Associates … Turning Parking Tickets Into Cash."

And right now, cities are doing more of that than ever:

In New York City, the undisputed king of parking tickets, the municipal coffers are stuffed with nearly $600 million in parking ticket revenue annually – about 50 percent more than in 2002. The financial opportunity is so large that New York hired more than 200 new agents this year, at a time when most city agencies were being cut.

In Chicago, the city leased its entire parking operation to a private company earlier this year. In exchange for the next 75 years of parking revenue, the city received an up-front payment of $1 billion from a group lead by investment bank Morgan Stanley. The deal is being challenged in court.

Atlanta announced it was outsourcing its parking enforcement to a Milwaukee-based firm named Duncan Solutions Inc. The city had been collecting $2 million in fines each year; now, Duncan has promised to send it a yearly check for $5.5 million. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, all 73 meter maids in the city were laid off this spring when the parking duties were outsourced to Duncan.

In Louisville, Ky., as in many other towns, the city has lowered its threshold for "booting," or immobilizing, cars. Now, only two outstanding parking tickets are enough to put the dreaded boot on a tire. And, in a major policy shift, cars may be booted even if they are legally parked when spotted by enforcement officials.

Normally, the boot devices are locked and can only be removed by law enforcement officials, which can require hours of waiting. But in Montgomery County, Md., just outside Washington D.C., local officials recently instituted a new system that allows alleged violators to unlock the devices using their cell phones. The cost : $115, plus payment of outstanding fines. The system, provided by New Jersey-based PayLock Systems, is also being used in New Orleans, Baltimore and about a dozen other cities. In some locations, it’s married with a camera-equipped car that lets citation officers cruise the city at normal driving speeds, looking for license plates tied to outstanding parking tickets.

In Washington D.C., city officials announced earlier this year that they were stepping up parking enforcement to raise millions in new revenue for the city. The most bizarre tactic: equipping street sweepers with cameras that automatically take pictures of cars parked in their path. The camera-generated parking tickets are expected to generate $2 million in annual revenue. Parking-crunched D.C. residents also complain that overaggressive ticket agents are suddenly enforcing laws that have been ignored for years, such as no parking within 5 feet of an alley or driveway.

“I recently got a ticket for parking in a space on the street that I have been parking in for three years at least and never had a problem,” one resident wrote recently in an Internet group devoted to parking frustrations. Said another: “We've received the unwanted attention of an overzealous meter maid. (She) recently began ticketing residents' cars for being too closely parked to our own driveways. Our 3 tickets state we have to park at least 5 feet away from a driveway … our own driveway. “

In Boston, ticket prices have soared. The price for being caught parked in a crosswalk recently rose from $40 to $85. Parking more than one foot from the curb jumped from $20 to $35.

And changes are hardly limited to huge cities. Sacramento, Calif. recently added an $8 fee to every parking ticket, hoping to net $1.5 million to help close a $50 million budget gap.

No mercy

Driver's advocates say the higher fines and new technologies are not the worst part of the new world order in parking. At a time when many drivers can least afford big surprise bills, parking citation officials are showing little mercy -- and in some cases, handing out unfair summons by the bushel, all in the name of making money.

"It’s an outrage when cities depend on parking summons for revenue. When they do, they are opening the doors for very serious abuses," said a New York-based citizens' advocate who calls himself Jimmy Justice. He films illegally parked New York City officials and embarrasses them by posting the short films on YouTube. "When someone gets a bogus ticket, everybody knows this is just part of a giant racket. It's sanctioned mugging."

Angry drivers are filling his inbox him with woeful tales of unfair tickets or overzealous agents, he said.

"Getting a ticket while backing into a parking space. Getting a ticket while sitting there for three seconds before backing into space. The list is endless. Parking enforcement agents in are trigger happy,” he said.

The New York Times did a data-driven analysis of city parking agents recently, and found that one had managed to write 227 tickets during one 5-hour stretch. A typical shift sees agents write about 40 tickets. Meanwhile, letter-of-the-law enforcement ruled the day. The city wrote 276,000 tickets during the year for drivers who were illegally parked for five minutes or less, the paper found.

Frustrations in New York are running so high that City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. recently said complaints about traffic tickets outnumber all other complaints to his office -- and he's considering legislation that would institute a grace period for drivers.

“The way traffic agents are enforcing the law is absolutely out of control," he told the New York Post.

How aggressive is enforcement? Bolofsky said he's seen New York drivers get tickets for double-parking merely because they are waiting for someone to pull out of a spot on the street - a time-honored practice in the competitive world of city parking.

"They sneak up behind people. They are waiting in the wings, in the shadows," he said. "Then they knock on the window and hand the driver a summons."

The good old days

Things weren't always this way, Jimmy Justice says. Police and traffic enforcement officials used to implement a long-standing policy called "warn and admonish." Illegally parked drivers were given a chance to move their vehicles before summonses were issued. But when cities began treating parking tickets as a revenue source instead of a public policy tool, that changed, he said.

"Fifteen years ago if someone was stopped in a no-parking zone for a moment, parking agents would wave and say 'you have to move,’ and any normal person would move. There would be no problem," he said. "Today they write tickets now and ask questions later. Because today parking violations is big business."

If the system feels cold and unforgiving, that's partly because many cities are using new technology that cuts out human interaction -- and the criminal justice system -- from the process. In Seattle, a pair of lawsuits are contesting the use of cameras to detect and cite speeders. Twenty area municipalities are named in the suit. In the city of Seattle, a new camera system wrote 58,000 tickets valued at $5 million in its first three months of operation.

Because the contracts promise a minimum payment to the cities, and the manufacturer agreed to split citation collections after that, one of the lawsuits contends the system gives "the cities and the vendors an illegal incentive to issue improper tickets and to err on the side of issuing a ticket versus declining to issue the ticket.”

Meanwhile, handheld electronic ticket issuing machines are sweeping municipalities, allowing meter maids to write more tickets – and more important, reduce errors that lead to dismissals. One manufacturer, DXY Solutions Inc., says switching to handhelds increases a single officer’s ticket-writing productivity by 30 percent.

Other new technology seems downright mean-spirited. Parking meters invented and sold by the French firm Technolia send texts messages to local police the very instant that a meter clicks down to zero.

While stories of parking citation budget bonanzas through increased enforcement aren’t hard to find – Denver’s collections soared from $16 million to $20 million in the past year, for example – the long-term impact of increased enforcement might not be so positive, said Jimmy Justice.

“This really creates a rift between the police department and the average citizen,” he said, noting that most people make no distinction between citation officers and armed police. “There used to be more communal respect with police officers. … Now when people see a police officer, they think they’re going to mug them, find a reason to write a violation. It’s not fair to paint all police with the same brush, but that’s what happens. It’s not good for anyone.”

off duty nypd officer blocks fire hydrant while doing personal shopping

2009-04-20T00:06:00.001-07:00

If You See Something, Say Something.

2009-04-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

"If you see something, say something. " New York City's slogan to help prevent terrorism has very important ramifications. The slogan implies that in addition to all the Government resources , the City also relies on the vigilant eyes and ears of the public to help keep the City safe.

Obviously , the police cannot be everywhere at the same time.Not only can everyone participate in protecting our City, but it is imperative that we take an active stance and become aware of our surroundings in order to make it more difficult for the terrorists to accomplish their objectives.

The Slogan "if you see something, say something" does not have to relate only to acts of terrorism.In my opinion, the slogan should refer to every part of City life that needs improvement.

New York City is the greatest city in the world. The city has many culturally diverse neighborhoods, with great food, entertainment, interesting personalities, and miles of opportunities for anyone who seeks employment or education.

Unfortunately , there is also a dark side.

For the past two years, the focus of my activism has been to improve the City's aging transit infrastructure, endless traffic jams, lack of parking, and the unfair practices of traffic enforcement.Quite simply , I want to make New York City a friendlier place for people to live, work, and visit.I have also tried to empower the public and wake them from a state of apathy.

I believe that there was a certain degree of altruism when traffic & parking laws were written.The laws were written to improve public safety for pedestrians and motorists.

New York City rakes in over $600,000,000 a year in parking fines. It has become painfully obvious that the city is no longer interested in public safety but rather in collecting revenue. The biggest clue to this equation is written on the orange envelope that comes with a parking summons."Make all checks payable to the Department Of FINANCE."

With such a large amount of money at stake, there is too much opportunity for corruption and lack of discretion by the ticket writers of the Traffic Enforcement Agency.All too often, these poorly trained officers treat the public obnoxiously and can often be seen violating the same laws that they are supposed to be enforcing , thereby creating a public safety hazard and offsetting the reason they exist in the first place.

I have entertained millions of youtube.com users with videos showing my confrontations with these traffic officers who are abusing their authority.

Although I am happy to make people laugh and entertain them, my ultimate purpose is to inspire dialogue and effect positive change on these issues in order to make life easier for everyone in the city.

I hope that the public outrage will force city hall to rethink its strategies and remove ambiguous signage, find ways to improve the flow of traffic, create more parking, provide more training and supervision for the out-of-control traffic enforcement agents, and show more compassion and discretion in summons writing.

I hit the streets armed with a video camera.When I see a public official behaving improperly I videotape it and call the 311 system and file an official complaint.

The only way that city officials can continue to abuse the system is if we turn a blind eye and give them the free pass to do so. Obviously, I cannot be everywhere at the same time. If we want to make the city a better place we have to all work together.It is our responsibility and civic duty to help prevent terrorism , and also official misconduct and malfeasance.

Therefore, "if you see something, SAY SOMETHING !"

Sincerely,

Jimmy Justice.

Councilman Felder is a hero

2009-01-13T07:04:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK, NY — Several City Council members announced on Sunday that a bill had been introduced that would create a five-minute grace period before drivers are issued summonses for parking violations like expired meters and alternate-side parking rules.

The bill addresses a longstanding pet peeve among many city lawmakers, whose constituents often complain of feeling victimized by unforgiving traffic agents.

“When people park, they shouldn’t have to feel that there are vultures, certain agents, waiting to give them a ticket the moment they are in violation,” said Councilman Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat who sponsored the legislation, which was introduced on Wednesday.

The grace period would apply to parking meters and to places where parking is prohibited during certain times of the day — when streets are being cleaned, for example, or when school is in session — and in periods when parking is allowed only for commercial vehicles or for loading and unloading.

An analysis by The New York Times in November of more than 10 million parking summonses issued in New York City in 2007 found that at least 276,000 drivers received tickets for breaching alternate-side parking rules within five minutes of the rules’ going into effect. Of those, 28,000 were written precisely as the rules took effect, the analysis showed.

Since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office, the number of parking summonses issued citywide has increased by 42 percent, Finance Department statistics show. The fines for specific infractions have also risen, and nearly 800 additional traffic agents have been hired to enforce the rules.

Agents no longer abide by an informal grace period, police officials said. Agents are now instructed, instead, to use discretion when writing the summonses — a subjective concept that Mr. Felder and some of his colleagues on the Council said was rarely employed.

“If traffic agents can’t use their own good judgment, then we’ll make them do it,” one of the bill’s supporters, Councilman Vincent J. Gentile of Brooklyn, said at the announcement, which was held on the steps of City Hall.

The council members said the stricter enforcement is part of the Bloomberg administration’s strategy to raise more money at a time when the city finds itself strapped for cash. Over the last fiscal year, the city collected more than $620 million in parking fines; during the 2003 fiscal year, the city collected $429 million in fines.

A mayoral spokesman, Marc LaVorgna, denied the suggestion, saying that the agents “are there to enforce the law, and the laws are there to keep traffic moving and to keep parking spaces in front of businesses turning over.”

He declined to comment on the specifics of the bill, as did Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker. Through a spokesman, Anthony Hogrebe, Ms. Quinn said the bill had been referred to the Council Transportation Committee, where it would receive “a thorough review.”

The committee’s chairman, John C. Liu of Queens, has yet to take a position on the legislation, but he said the concept behind it is “an understandable reaction from New Yorkers who too often feel they’re being squeezed as cash cows for the city.”

The bill could be the third parking-related measure enacted in recent months. On Dec. 29, Mayor Bloomberg signed legislation temporarily suspending alternate-side parking rules during snowstorms. Four weeks earlier, he had signed a bill allowing drivers to park at a missing or broken meter for as much time as they would be allowed to park if the meter were operational. Prior to that, parking at missing or broken meters was allowed only for up to one hour.

New York Times Article

2008-12-18T05:40:00.000-08:00

Officers Become Accidental YouTube Stars

By MICHAEL WILSON

Published: December 16, 2008

The uniformed traffic officer was standing at a deli counter when a man approached her and asked, “Are you on drugs?”

Police Officer Patrick Pogan on Tuesday, after he pleaded not guilty to charges resulting from an encounter with a bicyclist.

Taken aback, she replied, “What is your problem?” The man then proceeded to berate her for having parked in front of a fire hydrant outside the deli, even while fire engines responding to an emergency had stopped down the block. His voice rising to a shriek, the man followed the officer back to her car, where she politely told him, “Have a nice day.”

The officer drove away, and that was that. Until the man posted a video of the encounter on YouTube, where it had been viewed 363,478 times as of Tuesday.

That is a fraction of the 1,784,775 views of the video showing Officer Patrick Pogan knocking a man off his bicycle during a Critical Mass ride in Times Square in July. Officer Pogan was charged with assault, harassment, falsifying business records and other charges. He pleaded not guilty in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Tuesday and was released without bail.

While that video has brought widespread attention, it is by no means unique. In fact, video and cellphone cameras have become so prevalent that they are just another part of the workday for many police officers. And they can cut both ways, sometimes assisting officers in solving crimes, and sometimes implicating them.

“People tape all the time,” said an eight-year veteran of the department, a female officer in Downtown Brooklyn who, like other officers questioned for this article, spoke only on the condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to reporters. “It makes you uncomfortable, but that’s their right. You can’t stop them from taping.”

A search on YouTube unearthed dozens of encounters with New York police officers that often show the daily realities of policing at its most mundane.

Take, for example, a video that shows a uniformed officer trying to roust a man, who is apparently drunk, lying on the floor of a subway car. The officer touches the man and repeatedly instructs him to get up, without a response.

In another video, a man asks an officer if he may film him, and the officer replies, “You going to post them on the Internet? Then I’m going to have to break your camera over your face.” But he and other officers laugh, as does the cameraman, who eventually walks away. The video had 19,370 views as of Tuesday evening.

Several videos were made by a man calling himself Jimmy Justice, and they follow a similar formula: he confronts a police officer in the midst of some sort of apparent parking or driving violation. The traffic officer in the deli drove away from Mr. Justice with a smile, but others appeared to be more irked.

The unwitting star of a video titled “Traffic Cop Makes Illegal U-Turn” tells Mr. Justice, “Arrest me,” and encourages him to call 911. She finally concludes, “Step out of my face.”

In another video, “N.Y.P.D. Traffic Enforcement Sergeant Parks Illegally” (the titles of the videos are often benign compared to Mr. Justice’s hostility and obscenities that follow), Mr. Justice confronts a sergeant who parked beneath a no-parking sign to get money from an A.T.M.

“What was I supposed to do?” the sergeant says. “Stay hungry all day because of you?”

None of these videos rose to the level of prominence of the Critical Mass encounter or, on Sept. 24, the death of a naked and disturbed man in Brooklyn after an officer shot him with a Taser stun gun and he fell from the ledge he was standing on. The encounter was captured by an onlooker’s camera. But officers interviewed on Tuesday said videotaping is not a problem for them because they do not break departmental rules.

“If you’re getting in the way, or obstructing what I’m doing, that’s a different story,” said the officer in Downtown Brooklyn. “But if you’re not obstructing what I’m doing, you can put 10 videotapes on me.”

An officer in the Union Square subway station on Tuesday said that once when he intervened in a fight, he found he was being filmed by several people. “I asked people to help, but no one did,” said the officer. “I didn’t expect anyone to help, but at the time I really needed it. It was two against one.”

An officer directing traffic in Brooklyn asserted that it is illegal to tape police officers. “If I know that he’s taking video, I’m going to walk up to him and stop him,” the officer said.

That is not necessarily true, said Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman. Filming itself is not illegal, but interference with a police officer’s work can lead to arrest, he said. “Interference beyond just merely being obnoxious,” he said. “On balance, the proliferation of cameras has helped the police in solving crimes.” In fact, citizens who capture images of crimes in progress are now being encouraged to send the videos to the police.

An officer in his patrol car in Harlem shrugged off the cameras. “It’s a brave new world now,” he said. “They’ve got all kinds of things. You could be recording me right now.”

Reporting was contributed by Abha Bhattarai, John Eligon, Jennifer Mascia, Colin Moynihan, Rebecca White and Karen Zraick.

More Articles in New York Region » A version of this article appeared in print on December 17, 2008, on page A35 of the New York edition.

John Deutzman's report on Jimmy Justice

2008-11-16T00:20:00.000-08:00

Union Meeting Showdown - Jimmy Justice

2008-11-13T10:09:00.001-08:00

Traffic Officer Accused of Writing Phony Parking Tickets

2008-10-29T23:18:00.000-07:00

The NYPD says it’s investigating, but residents who’ve been burned by a rogue ticket agent insist she’s still on the job.

By Megan James

When the judge asked Charles Weintraub for evidence proving he did not deserve the parking tickets he had come to contest on Monday, all he had to do was point out the name of the traffic enforcement agent at the bottom of each of the three tickets.

“Oh,” he recalled the judge saying. “T. Flight? This is Riverdale? Dismiss them all.”

The word is getting out.

At least nine people — mostly North Riverdale residents — have come forward with bogus tickets issued by rookie agent Terri Flight since the summer, and they all come with rocksolid defenses. .

The NYPD’s Department of Internal Affairs says an investigation is underway, but so far only two of the people reporting bogus tickets have been interviewed, and the department has not confirmed whether Ms. Flight is still on duty in Riverdale.

The issue drew a standing-roomonly crowd to Community Board 8’s traffic and transportation committee meeting on Monday, including Diane Riback, who explained how she knew the ticket was bogus — her car had been involved in an accident on Riverdale Avenue, leaving it inoperable, three hours before she was issued a ticket for double parking in front of Riverdale Neighborhood House on Mosholu Avenue. Her ticket was dismissed.

Cynthia Dickstein and her husband, Robert, spent four hours in court on Monday, they said. Their four tickets were dismissed, but they regretted the time they lost fighting tickets they never should have been issued in the first place.

“Why do we have to go through this?” Ms. Dickstein asked.

One woman, who did not give her name, said she had a face-to-face confrontation with Ms. Flight the day in July she was issued her bogus ticket. Since then, she has kept an eye out for the agent, watching her cruising the streets of North Riverdale, down West 254th Street and then north on Riverdale Avenue every afternoon. According to this woman, Ms. Flight is still on the job.

The meeting even drew Jimmy Justice, an advocate for victims of the city’s traffic enforcement agents. There’s a name for what Ms. Flight has been doing, he said, “Phantom Ticketing.”

It’s more common throughout the city than most people think, said Mr. Justice, who spends whole days videotaping traffic agents throughout the city. He said agents have to fill a quota each shift — 26 tickets if they’re on foot, 35 if they’re in a car. Mr. Justice asserts there isn’t much supervision on the job, so he often finds agents issuing all their tickets early in the shift and taking it easy in the afternoon, he said.

Traffic and transportation committee chairman Tony Cassino said he was committed to getting Ms. Flight off the streets.

“We’re not going to let this drop,” he said. “The stories are so rock-solid. These tickets are illegal. This person should be arrested.”

This is part of the October 30, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

City Official parked illegally while shopping at Victorias Secret

2008-10-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

Traffic Enforcement Officer blocks fire hydrant to go into the bank

2008-10-04T12:43:00.001-07:00

Double Parking to write summonses

2008-10-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Clueless Sanitation Officers

2008-10-04T09:59:00.001-07:00

Jimmy Justice on Assignment with Reuters News

2008-08-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Sanitation Officer Austin blocks a hydrant and a lane of traffic

2008-08-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Justice on The Alex Jones Show.

2008-08-09T10:38:00.001-07:00

I am humbled and honored to have been invited as a guest on The Alex Jones Show.I applaud Alex Jones for standing up for what he believes in.I became a fan of Alex Jones after watching his documentary about the Bohemian Grove.Although I may not agree with Alex on every issue, I certainly respect his body of work, his diligent research , and his refusal to be intimidated by the Government or the Police.Alex Jones is a hero of mine.

Clips of Jimmy Justice on The Alex Jones Show have been made available on youtube.

To listen to them follow these links....

Jimmy Justice on The Alex Jones Show part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ0B9cP0308&feature=related

Jimmy Justice on The Alex Jones Show part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuPrFmcbjUI&feature=related

Jimmy Justice on The Alex Jones Show part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXrMxKMOP4&feature=related

Lazy Traffic cops go through red light- Jimmy Justice

2008-08-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post article on Jimmy Justice

2008-08-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

New York's Video Vigilante, Scourge of Parking Enforcers

'Jimmy Justice' Posts Images of Officers Breaking the Law

The man who calls himself "Jimmy Justice" roams New York with a video camera to find illegally parked government cars. He puts his videos online, trying to shame parking enforcers into obeying laws they ticket others for violating. (By Keith B. Richburg -- The Washington Post)

NEW YORK -- He calls himself "Jimmy Justice," a self-styled "cop-arazzi," armed only with a video camera as he prowls the streets of New York looking for law enforcement officers who are breaking the law. His targets are illegally parked city government vehicles -- particularly cars of traffic cops blocking bus stops, sitting in "no parking" zones or double-parked.

Cop cars blocking fire hydrants make him particularly incensed.

"Something like that is just despicable," Jimmy fumed, pointing to a police enforcement vehicle parked next to a fire hydrant on 33rd Street on Manhattan's West Side on a muggy July afternoon. "They're never allowed to block a fire hydrant -- but they do it."

He posts his best videos on YouTube and sends regular e-mail to the union representing the city's traffic enforcement agents, pointing out the most egregious parking offenses. And he has gotten results, he said, with some parking enforcers being fined because of his videos.

"I'm using a video camera as a weapon," he said. "I believe a video does not lie."

He is a fairly big, stocky guy, and with his brusque and hectoring manner, he has been described as obnoxious, self-righteous and worse.

"He acts like an adolescent," said James Huntley, the president of the traffic enforcers union. "I believe he's a big kid, or he wouldn't go around intimidating people who are just doing their job."

But in the digital age, Jimmy Justice represents a new kind of citizen vigilante at a time, particularly in New York, when amateur videos are increasingly being used to hold law enforcers to account and shine a public spotlight on their excesses.

Within the past week, two videos have surfaced showing what appears to be police misconduct in New York. In one video, viewed more than 1 million times on YouTube, a police officer is seen charging a bicyclist and knocking him to the ground during a July 25 group bicycle ride through Times Square -- despite the officer's sworn complaint that the cyclist tried to run him down.

A few days later, a separate video appeared, showing another police officer apparently swinging a baton and beating a handcuffed suspect lying on the ground during a July 4 arrest.

The police department has been stung by the incidents, and the officers involved have had their badges and guns taken away while the department investigates. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said there will soon be a way for people with videos of crimes -- and incidents of police misconduct -- to send them directly to the police through 911.

In the eyes of civil libertarians and others who have long complained about police excesses under New York's "zero tolerance" policy, the increasingly common use of video by ordinary citizens has started to shift the balance away from law enforcement officials in questions of official misconduct.

"I think the proliferation of video technology does, in some sense, level the playing field," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "When we think about the citizen eyewitnesses that have brought to light some egregious police conduct that no one would have believed, the benefit is unquestionable."

However, the police union cautions that videos do not always give the entire picture, and officers worry about a flood of citizen videos by people who might not understand that police work is sometimes a messy business.

"The use of force sometimes looks violent," said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "Pieces of video don't tell the whole story." With the police commissioner openly asking for citizen videos, Lynch said, "he's going to have to be very careful not to bow to public pressure and not bow to emotion."

Jimmy Justice -- a pseudonym he chose because it echoes "Give me justice" -- believes all residents of New York should be digitally armed and ready for action. "I think everyone should get a video camera," he said. "Or, if you have to get a new cellphone, get one with a video function." And when people get video of cops behaving badly, he said, "send it in to your local authorities. Or post it on YouTube or other video-sharing sites."

He might sound obsessed. But Jimmy insists he is just a normal guy from Brooklyn, with a job, a girlfriend, a social life and hobbies, including playing guitar in a band. Jimmy Justice's crusade, he said, is against what he calls the city's double standard on parking. Uniformed agents relentlessly -- some say ruthlessly -- enforce parking rules in a city where spaces are scarce, but they violate those same rules when on personal business, such as stopping for lunch or running errands.

"You can call it a vendetta if you want, because that's what it is," Jimmy said. "It's about the city's predatory policy of ticketing to raise revenue." When traffic enforcers park illegally, he said, "it's an unfair double standard."

Sometimes it gets ugly out there. In the two years since he began making his videos, Jimmy said, he has been threatened, punched and spit on, and has had cameras smashed to the ground. He said he does not disclose his real name because he fears retaliation by someone whom he has made an unwilling YouTube star.

And Jimmy admits that he occasionally crosses the line, sometimes verbally berating traffic enforcers.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he shouts in a video at one enforcer who was in a restaurant buying lunch while her car was parked next to a fire hydrant -- as firetrucks arrived outside for an emergency. "Are you on drugs?" Jimmy shouts at her.

"I definitely try to pick it up when the camera is on," he conceded. "I want to make entertaining videos."

And that is precisely what infuriates Huntley, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1182, which represents the city's 2,500 traffic enforcement agents and sanitation workers.

"Sometimes we do have to make U-turns. Sometimes we do have to park here and there," Huntley said. "This man wants to glorify himself and get some ratings."

Huntley said he is more concerned about traffic agents facing harassment and assaults in the streets for simply doing their jobs. In April, Gov. David A. Paterson signed a new law that makes an assault on a traffic enforcement agent a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

"We can have him arrested for menacing or stalking," Huntley said of Jimmy, signaling a possible new confrontation in the streets. "For too long, we've been abused by the public and the media. We're not going to be a punching bag anymore in New York City."

WebProNews article on Jimmy Justice

2008-07-29T00:38:00.001-07:00

New York Man Uses YouTube To Show Cops Breaking Law

By Mike Sachoff - Mon, 07/28/2008 - 3:22pm.

Turns tables on police

A New York City resident, known as Jimmy Justice, has been video taping New York City Police officers and city workers breaking the law while working; and posting the clips on his own channel on YouTube.

In an interview with WebProNews, Justice spoke about what he does and some of the challenges he faces while video taping law enforcement and city workers.

Justice said he has been documenting the illegal activity of New York City public employees for about two years. He primarily films police committing traffic violations such as parking by a fire hydrant or in no-standing zones.

He said he started filming them because," New York City employs a system of predatory ticketing." "Traffic cops scour the streets looking for petty violations to write summonses. It is apparent that City Hall is not interested in public safety but rather using traffic law to raise revenue. I wanted to turn the tables on those who write the summonses, and I hoped to inspire some discretion in the manner that they ticket civilians."

Justice said he is not intimidated by law enforcement officials when he films them. "I know that I am allowed to take video in a public place, so I cannot be intimidated."

Justice says he publishes his videos under the pseudonym Jimmy Justice but that it would be naive of him to think the police don't know his identity. "I can handle myself in any face- to- face confrontation," Justice said. "What I am afraid of is a rogue officer coming to my house when I am not home and taking revenge by writing me 100 summonses for nonsense."

The worst confrontation Justice has had was when a of board of education employee smashed his camera "to pieces."

Justice said the city of New York has investigated some of the clips he has posted on his YouTube channel."They have already investigated some of the officers who were caught abusing their authority in my videos. More importantly, the city has started to crack down on scofflaws who use their city issued parking placards improperly by parking illegally while running personal errands."

Justice stressed he is "not against the police, I am only against rogue officers who abuse their authority."

Jimmy Justice To Be Featured On MSNBC

2008-06-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Justice will be featured this Sunday night June 29th at 10pm Eastern time on the MSNBC special : Caught On Camera- 'The Video Vigilantes'.

Here is a link to a short preview.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25288797#25288797

I am on vacation in Germany

2008-06-13T11:51:00.001-07:00

NYPD traffic enforcement tow truck blocks hydrant while driver is in Mcdonalds

2008-06-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Justice on The Bob Rivers Show- Seattle Washington

2008-06-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was invited to call into The Bob Rivers show in Seattle Washington.

To listen to the interview follow this link:

http://www.bobrivers.com/ontheshow/brsnews.asp?dismode=article&artid=9431

( It is easier to load the audio using internet explorer, if you use firefox you may have to download a plug in )

I want to thank Bob Rivers for having me on his show.

J.J.

Jimmy Justice on The Opie & Anthony Show

2008-06-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

I am excited to announce that I will be on the O&A show Thursday morning June 5th some time between 8:00 and 8:30 am.

You can hear it on XM satellite radio channel 202, or on 92.3 K-Rock in New York City.

I have been a big fan of O&A and their outrageous antics for many years, and I am looking forward to having a good time talking to them.

I want to thank O&A's audience for being very supportive of my traffic cop videos.

J.J.

P.S. If anyone has a recording of my appearance on The O&A show please email it to me @ jimmyjustice4753@gmail.com
Thanks :)

Jimmy Justice on ABC-7 local news in New York City

2008-04-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Justice on the Star Jones show

2008-04-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

NYC traffic enforcement tow truck driver parks blocking a fire hydrant while he orders his lunch

2008-04-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

John Deutzman of Fox 5 is a hero of mine !

2008-02-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

NYPD traffic enforcement agent sergeant parks illegally while running personal errands

2008-02-08T00:32:00.001-08:00

Lets Go Giants !!!

2008-02-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

Nothing would make me happier than seeing the Patriots lose the Super Bowl.Especially to the New York Giants ! If any team has a chance to defeat the Patriots, it is the Giants.I have my fingers crossed.

Traffic Enforcement Agent In a Bus Stop

2008-02-03T08:58:00.000-08:00

New Videos Coming Soon !!!

2008-01-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

I want to apologize for not posting new videos for a while. I have many hours of videos that I want to share, and I still hit the streets in my spare time making new videos.

Today my priorities are to watch both NFL playoff games. After the games , I will get to work and upload some new videos.

You can watch all my videos on my youtube page.

http://www.youtube.com/jimmyjustice4753

Or you can watch some of them here.Scroll down this page and go to "older posts" to see all of them.

Sanitation Enforcement Agent Agnone Breaks The Law

2008-01-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Female Traffic Cop Breaks The Law Because She Is Having Her Period

2008-01-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Justice On Countdown

2008-01-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Justice on ABC's i-caught Videos

2008-01-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Justice On Inside Edition

2008-01-20T09:39:00.001-08:00

Who Watches Them ?

2008-01-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

Traffic Cop Makes Illegal U-Turn

2008-01-20T09:35:00.001-08:00

Traffic Cop Anderson Breaks the Law And Has A Message For NYC

2008-01-20T09:34:00.001-08:00

Traffic Enforcement Agent Block Fire Hydrant During Fire

2008-01-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome To The Jimmy Justice Blog

2008-01-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Jimmy Justice blog ! We can discuss issues of social injustice, abuse of authority by the Government, or other current events. I welcome all comments positive or negative.But lets try to be friendly and share ideas that will improve the quality of life for everyone in the city.