Last night we received an email from a reader complaining — surprise! — about District police. He wrote:

Around 7pm at 17th and R St NW, a police officer spent valuable taxpayer money and time ticketing people for crossing the street without waiting for the walk signal. As dangerous a threat jaywalking is to the citizens of DC (and I am sure this is better than the cops illegally parallel parking to get to Chipotle or car surfing after-hours) aren’t there tougher challenges at hand: like the rising murder rate? I saw him write two tickets and instruct a father and son about the importance of following proper cross-walk protocol. I feel much safer with this new crack down.

As you may recall, blogger Rock Creek Rambler had much the same reaction when he was recently caught driving without a seatbelt on, and we chimed in when a friend of ours was actually handed a written warning for jaywalking in late March. Don’t police have something better to do than hand out tickets for minor violations? Aren’t there murders, assaults, robberies, and rapes to be solved? Criminals to be apprehended? What gives?