Remember how radio personalities, city council members, and office water-cooler gatherers laughed and scorned the Peoria police for their enforcement of jaywalkers just a few days ago?  Oh, how ridiculous, they said.  That law is dumb, they scoffed.  The police should be focusing on real crime instead of just trying to score some easy income from fines.

Where was all that scorn when this story came out about handicapped parking?

Peoria hiked its fine from $200 to $350 and also launched a crackdown dubbed “Operation Helping Hands.”

A parking enforcement officer was assigned to randomly check handicapped spaces throughout the city and issue tickets, and police officers were instructed to step up enforcement in their districts.

An organized crackdown?  Higher fines?  An officer specifically assigned to do nothing but “randomly check handicapped spaces throughout the city and issue tickets”?  Where are all the armchair police chiefs decrying this waste of department resources?  Is this really more important than all that “real crime” they were castigated for not fighting just a few days ago?  Why didn’t Councilman Morris have anything to say about the “heavy-handedness” of upping the fine to $350?  Doesn’t he think the police should just hand out warnings to handicapped-parking scofflaws?  Why didn’t Councilman Sandberg point out that able-bodied people often use their handicapped relative’s placards so they can park close, and then argue that this loophole invalidates the whole system?

See, people really do think that ordinances are worthy of being enforced, even though they’re not “real crime” and aren’t always foolproof — they just don’t want the police to enforce ordinances they don’t like.  That’s understandable for radio personalities and water-cooler loiterers, but the city council should have stood up for the police like Barbara Van Auken did a week ago.  In fact, I think several council members owe the police an apology for castigating them for doing their job.