Seattle police give ticket to car without realizing it was stolen

Police in Seattle ticketed a car in front of a hydrant — but did not realize that it was a stolen car.

As KIRO 7’s Gary Horcher originally reported, Portland resident Shirine Park was visiting Seattle for radiology work at UW Medical Center and stopped at a park to give her dog some exercise. The small park, which included a kids’ playground, seemed like the safest place possible to her.

Park told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that she believes that when she unhooked her dog from the leash, her car keys fell out of her pocket. A few minutes later, she realized the keys were gone.

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“I looked up and saw — there were only five cars on that street, anyway — and mine was no longer one of those five,” she said.

Besides her purse with cash and credit cards, Park’s car included suitcases full of clothes and most of her possessions, along with a bike, as she was coming to stay in Seattle. She immediately called 911 and reported the stolen car.

Just 25 minutes later, Seattle police did find Park’s car, parked in front of a fire hydrant. But instead of noting it was stolen and returning it to her, they purportedly gave it a citation for being parked illegally and moved on.

What’s more, Park was not contacted by the court, but only found this information out by researching court records herself with her license plate number.

“Why in the world was I not contacted?” she said. “Why, if they were able to put my license plate in a system, why didn’t it come up as stolen?”

Park said that she was told different explanations from every person associated with SPD with whom she has spoken to as to why police were on top of an illegally-parked car, but not a stolen one.

What infuriates Park most of all is not even that someone stole nearly all of her possessions, but that police did not act sooner to stop someone who could have been capable of dangerous activity while in possession of the car.

“It’s not a nice person who takes your car, it’s a criminal. And a criminal mind has criminal behavior,” she said. “And that means that everything that happens when they are in possession of your car is not going to be good.”

Three-and-a-half days later, a different officer called Park and reported that her stolen car had been found at 43rd and University Way, near the University Bookstore. However, the car that Park found was not exactly the same one that she had owned.

“A window was broken, the back end was run in, and also the front end,” she said. “So it’s got damage all the way around it.”

None of Park’s personal possessions were in the car. However, it was full of other materials.

“To my horror, I open up the car door, and it is filled — almost to the top of the backseat — of articles, none of which are mine, and appear to be all stolen,” she said.

She also found drugs, weapons, and tools that looked like they would be used to break into buildings or other vehicles.

As if losing nearly everything she own and having her car destroyed wasn’t enough, Park now has to go to court to fight a ticket that she did not deserve.

“I was told I should be thrilled — ‘Don’t worry about that ticket, you’re going to be able to get that squashed,'” she said. “That’s not why I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated because, ‘Why isn’t this thing lining up?'”