Tables turned on officer

A Charleston parking enforcement officer was dispatched to an illegally parked car on State Street last week. But she couldn't ticket the car she found parked too long in a loading zone because it was her own city vehicle.

Oana Johnson, a paralegal who works on State Street, reported the violation to the city Thursday morning after noticing the city vehicle camped out in the loading zone for well past the posted 30-minute limit.

Johnson was taken aback when the parking officer showed up at her place of business demanding to know who had called her supervisor and insisting that she could park in the loading zone as long as she pleased if she was doing her job. The officer then drove away.

"I am saddened and disappointed to see that those that are enforcing the parking regulations are the first ones to abuse them," Johnson said.

Johnson said she has been following the newspaper's "Parking Cheaters" series and decided to contact Watchdog about the incident because it seemed hypocritical.

Paul Campbell, the city's director of parking enforcement, said the parking officer did not receive special treatment. He said he had no way of knowing that the officer he dispatched to State Street was, in fact, the same officer who was illegally parked.

Once the officer realized it was her own car that had been reported, she couldn't very well ticket herself, Campbell said.

But he acknowledged that if the car in the loading zone had belonged to a resident, "you would've gotten a ticket."

The officer clearly made a mistake and has been warned not to park in loading zones anymore, Campbell said.

"She should have parked in a residential area, not in the loading zone."