Jaywalking is the birthright of Clevelanders. Having no use for crosswalks and the common sense to know that dammit we’re in a hurry, screw those cars, the streets of downtown are basically a game of Frogger.
That’s especially true in Public Square, which is groundzero for a purported crackdown by cops on Cleveland’s right to cross the street whenever we damn please.
19 Action News reports Cleveland police are out en masse ticketing jaywalkers. That transgression will cost you a tidy sum of $150 if you’re caught.
The reason for the enforcement is maybe probably absolutely definitely the imminent arrival of the casino. Public Square is the little cousin Cleveland wishes it didn’t have. The once historic square is now a glorified bus depot with some old statues, little more than a home for Occupy Cleveland, vagrants, panhandlers, and the occasional actual working person who’s become lost on their way to Johnny’s.
This is not the public face the city wants to present on the doorstep of Dan Gilbert’s palace.
So, check for cops and maybe try to use some crosswalks now and then in the coming weeks. Feel free to give everyone the finger while doing so, however.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2012.
So in your mind Jaywalking, which is a crime, should be ignored because Clevelander’s feel the right to do it? It’s one thing to jaywalk on Lansing or Fleet Ave and another to jaywalk in Public Square which is a traffic hub. I’m glad their ticketing for it because I have personally seen public buses, school buses and traffic of all kinds stopped in Public Square because one persona ignored a Do Not Cross light. Also love you single out Dan Gilbert’s Casino investment like its evil when I haven’t seen many other people with money pledge their love for Cleveland, Like the Dolans or Randy Lerner, when Gilbert is risking it to make Cleveland a little better.
cleveland has to make a dollas somehow, downtown is dead
Bruno…Do you find anything just plain funny? Everything is a crime to the repubichair mentality. And that is what really makes us libtard, jaywalking criminals laugh the loudest.
Maybe they could start caring by keeping Public Square clean. I stood just a few feet in front of the Terminal Tower front doors yesterday, waiting to meet my wife and was inundated with the stench of rotting piss.
People are the worst and best thing on earth. Our piss and shit smells, and when our dead bodies decompose they will make most throw up. That Ray’s got blamed for the stench which Anthony Sowell’s insanity left on Imperial Ave, is still hard to believe. That it took years to find the cause is crazy. A trained dog would have sniffed all of the dead ones out in an hour, yet Ray’s had to spend thousands of dollars to hunt for the problem. Did Ray’s ever get any of the promised help it was to get? Or did the city just bury that aspect of the crime along with the Sowell trial?
@Bruno…you’re absolutely right on all points. The knuckleheads at SCENE love big government, big unions (especially public ones) and the Academic Industrial Complex aka, leftist seminaries aka American universities and colleges. But when a person takes a gamble with his own blood sweat and tears, not too mention their hard earned dollars, they’re to be demonized. BTW Bruno, ignore the comments from the miscreant who signs in as Kenny Jaeger. Every time he pokes his head out from under his rock, he adds nothing but foolishness to the conversation.
When they get done with public square can they please move down to W. 25th between lorain and detroit. The whole corridor is one huge crosswalk.
Joel8750…actually, most people demonizing gambling….especially in Ohio…are your fellow right-wingers. Take a look at cleveland.bomb. Then again, looks like a lot of posters (and even the writer of this article) look like cleveland.bomb/PD types.
I find it disgraceful that the Cleveland police decided to, all of a sudden (after years doing otherwise), crack down on jaywalking by issuing $150 tickets. If they had wanted to crack down on jaywalking in a nice manner they would have issued a press release to the media to warn people they would start issuing tickets. Or they might have posted signs to warn of the policy change. Or they might have told the officers to only issue warnings to jaywalkers at first so people get the message.
Instead, they once again showed they are willing to make downtown Cleveland a more unpleasant place. This is one of the reasons a lot of people don’t like to go downtown anymore. They set up red light cameras and the like, and people come away with bad feelings about Cleveland.
If jaywalking has really become too big a problem in Cleveland there are still CHOICES on how to best address that. Cleveland chose the nasty route. 32 expensive jaywalking tickets in one day means 32 people who are now thinking bad thoughts about Cleveland and the police and they will tell others. But this is the trend in American cities over the last decade or so. It’s actually worse in some other cities. In some American cities in 2012 you are made to feel you might get ticketed for sneezing.
People are tired of being bullied and harassed and treated shabbily by their government. And btw, in case anyone isn’t up on things, our governments of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are the most corrupt in America.
Good point Kenny — re: Anthony Sowell’s house of horrors smelling of rotting corpses. How could it have been that it took so long for Cleveland’s officials to get to the bottom of that stench? Where were our health inspectors? Where were our sheriff’s deputies who were supposed to be keeping tabs on the high risk sex offender? Where were the police who should have been looking for the missing women? I guess they were all as “busy” as those Cleveland cops who were snoozing in the cemetery when 911 calls were coming in about a dead body along the freeway, and then mistook the body for a deer because they were in a rush to get some fast food.
Yeah, sure, they’ll crack down on jaywalkers. They’ve got to send the signal that Public Square is now Horseshoe Square, and they will bully us all till we understand that. But let me tell you something. I will call the cop who gives me a jaywalking ticket a pig right to his face, and I will never pay that ticket. No, I won’t be going to your “Justice” Center where the bailiffs hit people up for cash bribes. Not unless you take me in handcuffs. Hey, maybe you’ll try and murder me in your jail like you murdered our singer, Sean Levert. But I’m glad you changed the name of the street by the “Justice” Center so it’s no longer named after that felon you tried to pass off as a Sheriff.
Here’s a tip for improving Cleveland: Why doesn’t one of those lazy jerks at the “Justice” Center get a bottle of Windex and clean the glass doors for the first time this century, and maybe clean up some of the cig butts layering the ground in the “no smoking zone” where you’ll see uniformed “Justice” Center employees smoking all day long?
Okay, I’m getting carried away here. But I could go on…..
I just like an exchange of ideas, Joe 2..4..6..8 and now who do you want to hate?? Kenny Jaeger…that’s who… Kenny Jaeger the libtard who is fearless of all repubichair pricks…Kenny Jaeger the funniest MFer in Cleveland..
I do like how Bruno gets things going on here. It is all about communication and the exchange of opinions and seeking out truth. I apologize to Bruno for me being such a libtard and smart ass…But Joe…2…4…6…8 you have far too much repubic-hair hate..I don’t know if you have anything positive to say..If so, I haven’t heard it yet. I know you get a lot of thumbs down which makes me think you might just be on here to represent the far right and keep things polorized..If so..good job of playing the idiot repubichair, rich people ass-kissing, uptight and negative thinking, anti-humanity prick..With all the movies coming to town I’m sure there will be a part for a guy with your talents.
Those who received the tickets for jaywalking deserve it. It has been a law on the books for many years in many cities. I received my first and last jaywalking ticket in Santa Barbara, CA, many years ago. I left the state without paying for it and the next time I came back I was stopped for a traffic violation and there was a warrent for my arrest for “running a light as a pedestrian.” In other words, jaywalking. I spent four days in jail and then went in front of the judge and he told the prosecutor if he ever saw another case like this ever come in front of him again, he, the prosecutor, would find himself in jail. The moral of this story is, obey the law and get over it.
Dee Snowholly Mark Dikun: I’m puzzled by your post. You say the taxpayer’s had to pay to house you in jail or four days and when you were before the court the judge reprimanded the prosecutor for wasting his court’s time. But then you say the moral of the story is to obey the law and get over it. So we shouldn’t be worried about out of control prosecutors clogging our JAILS and courts with such things? We shouldn’ be worried about police making cities in America so unpleasant that you sometimes feel you will get ticketed for sneezing?
Anyway, I’d like to know, again, why the police didn’t begin their crackdown by putting something out in the media or issuing mere warnings at first.
Also, I’ve been on Public Square a few times of late. The crosswalk in front of the Terminal Tower is, at this time, partially obstructed by a fenced off construction zone for the casino. Yu can still access the crosswalk, but the natural path to it from the main doors of the Terminal Tower is cut off. This makes it a more egregious case of harassing the public.
Ultimately, there are rules for a reason. When I’m driving and I approach a crosswalk, I’m ready to slow down and I watch for pedestrians. When it’s the middle of the road and no one is supposed to be crossing here aka because it’s illegal, I am not as attentive. Cracking down makes it safer for everyone. Yes it would have been nice to give everyone a heads up before this crackdown, but that’s not how people roll I guess.
last time i parked in cleveland, i got to my car at 3:40 and had a ticket on it for parking after 4pm…. no site of a ticketmaid so it was much earlier. I made it for some 99% time but did not drive… think about this next time you wonder why its dead in cleveland. at least i didnt jay walk too!
The problom is not that everyone has a disregard for the law. Jaywalking is illegal but the problom is with it actuly even being a law. How about the people driving sould just pay attiontion when they are driving thru downtown. People are not going to stop jaywalking, you have to be ignorent to “the way of things” if you think anything you say will stop it. What happens if we have flying cars in the future? would it be illegal to jump? F#%$ing Nazis!