but there are some serious preconceived ideas displayed within your thread,
that could come back to haunt you later. Primarily having to do with your mistaken
belief, that just because you didn't travel that much thru Austin, you were relatively
safe from their warrants and arrest. Newsflash! Other communities
(especially those bordering the jurisdiction in question) have reciprocal agreements
that deal with those who are 'caught' for municipal warrants involving a neighboring
gooberment entity. If you had ignored the warning in the mail from Austin (like many
would be prone to do, as they feel they will never go there) the possible liklihood of
it coming back to bite you doesn't necessarily decrease. All it takes is an officer in
a nearby and/or neighboring district, checking on wants/warrants, and you could have
been arrested and driven to the city border with Austin and then transferred to the
custody of one of their officers - or if that wasn't a possibility at the time, you would
be taken to their jail and await transfer by an Austin officer. Your vehicle would of course,
still have been impounded from the original location of the traffic stop.
Which now brings us to an even more important issue which you
earlier touched upon . . ."judging from Austin's ability to clear things up".
Notice that it took you twice to send in the necessary documents, to make the
warrants disappear. It should have only taken once . . . agreed? What makes
you think that it will stay that way in the future? Computers have 'glitches'
and people are human and seem to keep making mistakes. I've seen it over &
over again, in which someone paid their debt to society (fines or sat it out in jail)
only to be picked up a short time later for the EXACT SAME WARRANTS!!!
Not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES for one poor schmuck, before the idiots
in charge & supposidly running the "$y$tem" got the message to clean it up or else.
My advice, freely given as a former law enforcement officer, is for you and anyone
else finding themselves/friends/family members in a similar situation, to check
every 3-6 months to make sure that the problem has really been taken care of.
Wrote a LOT of tickets with those two police departments in Texas while there
and although it's been over 16 years since retiring from the last place, I'm quite
certain, that a number of people are still being picked up on those warrants when
they weren't taken care of as tickets. They won't get their 'day in court' now;
only an arrest, transported to the city jail and either pay the fine or do the time.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + +
Quote:
Originally Posted by TMTex
About a year later, I got a bill from the City of Austin for unpaid parking tickets. When I called them, I found out they had a warrant out for my arrest over the tickets. Luckily, I'm not in their jurisdiction and don't have many reasons to go to Austin.
Following up a bit over a month later, I found that Austin still had the warrant out for my arrest. I resent the documents and they eventually rescinded the warrant.
If I had driven through (insert any other juridiction which shares boundaries with) Austin on my way to somewhere, (which happens from time to time due to work),
and got stopped by a cop there, I would have been arrested.
Judging from Austin's ability to clear things up . . .
Judging from my speeding ticket collection, I'm probably more likely to be pulled over than many folks out there.
Good thing I don't go through Austin that much.
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