by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
When you write parking citations all day, you know that by the time you clock out at the end of the day, you’ve left something on some people’s windshields that they’ll remember. City of Jacksonville Disabled Parking Enforcement Specialist Bobby Thigpen writes some of the heftiest parking tickets in Duval County ($250 for the first offense) because he is focused on enforcing the ordinance prohibiting parking in the specially-designated handicap spaces without a valid permit.
He patrols all over town and one day while he was enforcing the law in a grocery store parking lot on the Southside, he was called on to perform above and beyond the call of duty. The store manager alerted Thigpen that a theft was about to take place and asked for help in keeping the suspect in the area long enough for a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer to arrive.
“I don’t have the power to arrest anyone,” remarked Thigpen. “But I knew the store manager because I patrol his parking lot on a regular basis, so I was happy to help out. A guy was stealing a buggy full of meat from the store. This particular store has a policy that if you need food and don’t have any money, they’ll give you peanut butter and jelly for your kids, but this guy was walking out of that grocery store pushing a shopping basket full of filet mignon he was trying to steal.”
Even though he doesn’t carry a gun or even handcuffs, Thigpen does wear a uniform and a badge. Just his presence was enough to keep the suspected steak thief from running until a police officer arrived and took him into custody.
Technically, Thigpen works in the City’s Recreation and Community Affairs Department but he works closely with the Military Affairs, Veterans and Disabled Services Division making sure only those who need to park in handicap spaces do so. He also works with the “Parking Posse,” an all-volunteer group of citizens who have been trained to enforce the handicap-space parking laws. Combining the volunteers’ efforts with Thigpen’s full-time City job, about 600 people a month are finding tickets under their wiper blades for parking where they’re not supposed to. All the fines collected are used to fund services for Duval County’s disabled citizens like building home wheelchair ramps and providing smoke detectors free of charge to persons with disabilities. The citations have become a revenue stream that benefits the disabled community.
Thigpen also said the number of violations is gradually decreasing, he thinks because the law is being more effectively enforced which means people are becoming more reticent about parking illegally in a handicap space.
“The people who really need to use those spaces should be able to do so,” said Thigpen.
356-2466