Sacramento Parking Officers Increasingly Dealing With Physical Attacks

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Parking officers are given the blame when they hand out parking tickets. But this year, their job has been more dangerous than before.

The city of Sacramento says they've seen an increase in physical attacks against parking officers. One even sent an officer to the hospital.

You can see that little white piece of paper a block away: a parking ticket. And while most of us will grumble and eventually pay the tickets, some people aren't so civil, and take things too far.

You need a pretty thick skin to spend a day in Andrew Thomas's shoes.

"People that drive by, they like to yell at you," said Thomas, a city of Sacramento parking officer

People have hurled insults at Thomas who sometimes has a thankless job.

Recently, some people have gone beyond yelling and name-calling to actually attack parking officers as they hand out tickets. One man ran up to Thomas, complaining he got five tickets in a week.

"I told him what he needed to do to contest them," he said.

That wasn't enough of an explanation though. The man got mad, started yelling and threw an egg at Officer Thomas.

"He never hit me; he did spit on me," said Thomas.

This year there have been five similar cases where police were called in. It's the most in recent memory, says Parking Manager Matt Eierman.

"When you're starting to see a different trend -- and trends are changing -- it's important for us to take note," said Eierman.

Eierman says in October several men jumped a parking officer over a ticket, beating him so badly he was hospitalized. He says parking officers are undergoing communication training and looking at ways to better handle situations that are coming to a boil.

"If we're able to deescalate a problem or a situation right there in the field, then we know we've done our job right," he said.

Since parking officers are sworn officers, the city says, anything you do to them that would otherwise be a misdemeanor, would be considered a felony.

If you physically attack a parking officer, you will do jail time if you are convicted.

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