Expired tags? You’re going to jail.
No surprise, this story comes from the nation’s capitol.
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WASHINGTON — District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray said Friday he expects police officers to use discretion and to be sensible in deciding whether to arrest drivers who have expired tags.
D.C. police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said in a statement that city law allows drivers with expired tags a 30-day grace period in which they’re issued a civil traffic violation instead of being arrested. After that, police have the discretion arrest a driver, issue a ticket or issue a civil citation. She said figures weren’t immediately available about how many drivers have been arrested solely for expired tags. She said it’s against the law to have an expired tag and that officers are sworn to enforce the laws.
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To put this in perspective, here’s crime data from Washington DC:
The district has its hands full with:
Rapes 6x the national average
Murders 4x the national average
Robberies 6x the national average
Auto thefts 3.5x the national average
Assaults 2x the national average
Yet, DC police offers find the time (and the willingness to do the paperwork) to arrest drivers charged with nothing more than expired tags. It’s an administrative issue inexplicably handled in a criminal fashion, and nowhere else in the Virginia-Maryland region does a police offer have the power to make an arrest for tags alone.
Additionally, an expired driver’s license in DC can also result in an arrest.
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This is, quite obviously, an abuse of police power and a waste of taxpayers’ time and money.
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