Facebook is a great resource to keep in touch with friends and family, and it appears that the social network is also a great resource for publicly shaming police officers for doing exactly the same thing that they write tens of thousands of dollars worth of tickets for. That’s what a Facebook sleuth did to a police chief in Florida and made him give himself a parking ticket.
David Bires, the Facebook detective who pointed out the police chief’s transgression, posted an image of Groveland Police Chief Melvin Tennyson’s SUV on Facebook showing that it was parked on a sidewalk. That’s something that the police write tickets for so to have the chief indulge in similar behavior doesn’t really reflect nicely on the department.
Bires wrote a message with the picture saying that the Groveland police department is writing tickets to people who park their cars in their own driveway if it’s blocking the sidewalk, “$40.00 tickets are issued, but when the chief of police block sidewalks it’s OK? Share this post,” he added.
Sure enough, people shared it so much so that one of the sergeants at the police department brought it to the attention of the chief himself. Tennyson didn’t try to deny or contest it, rather he paid the fine as per the law, and the Groveland Police Department even posted a copy of the receipt on Facebook to confirm that the chief had indeed paid the ticket. All is well that ends well, I guess.