On Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2006, police ticketed thirteen pedestrians and two motorists for jaywalking and crosswalk violations downtown around Jefferson, Adams, and Main streets. There was the usual hue and cry with calls for police to focus on “real crime,” but the police and the city (rightly) stood firm.
Not so the State’s Attorney’s office. On Feb. 14 that year, prosecutors dropped the charges, sending all the scofflaws letters that stated, “Our office joins Peoria police in its interest to raise public awareness regarding pedestrian safety…. We have chosen not to pursue this as a prosecution in court, and no payment nor further action is necessary on your part. No mark of any kind will appear against your license or name regarding this matter.” Kevin Lyons declined to comment at the time.
So I would expect the State’s Attorney’s office do the same for the children who were recently ticketed for similar pedestrian violations. Since they’ve set a precedent for dismissing these infractions, it would be inconsistent for them to take a different course of action here, wouldn’t it?
As I see it, this will put the State’s Attorney between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn’t prosecute these tickets, he’ll be perceived by many as soft on crime at the worst possible time for him: during an election cycle (won’t LaHood have fun with that one?). But if he does prosecute, he’ll have, at best, a large number of people demanding an explanation for his inconsistency — at worst, charges of racism.
I’ll bet he regrets not prosecuting those tickets last year.
Lyons may well regret dismissing the downtown violations, but it was the right thing to do. This recent spate of tickets is a different story. As I understand it, these high school students (“children” if you prefer) were repeatedly warned about disrupting traffic. Why not give them a pass? We give them a pass on everything else, don’t we? Better yet, how about we just close the street?
Or better yet, let’s just repeal all laws against jaywalking. If we’re not going to enforce them, why have them on the books?
The preacher wants the tickets turned into warnings. Well I disagree because the students were warned day after day over the PA system that the police were going to start ticketing jaywalkers. They had their warning and ignored it and now they need to pay the fines. I didn’t agree with those downtown getting off either. The jaywalking in this town is like trying to traverse the freeway at rush hour on a skate board. Its a zoo.