Mar 5, 2007 8:22 pm US/Pacific
The Parking Hustle
by Anna Werner
(CBS 5) The complaints are rolling in from Bay Area viewers who say they too were caught in the parking hustle: fake parking attendants collecting money at downtown lots in San Francisco. And many people are asking, what are police doing about the situation? It's a question CBS 5 Investigates has put to the department.
"It's unusual," San Francisco Police Captain Kevin Dillon told us, after looking at our hidden-camera video of the parking hustle.
On one recent Friday night, five men pretended to be parking attendants at a lot at Polk and Hayes.
"I've only heard of one or two people operating in a parking lot," Dillon says. "But to see them with the orange cones, it's certainly unusual."
And now CBS5 viewers are telling us they've been hustled in lots all over downtown, in locations noted by yellow dots on the map posted above. And it's happening not just downtown, but on the Embarcadero too, at lots around Fisherman's Wharf.
One said, "A friend of mine had her car stolen on a lot at Polk and Hayes. Hard to believe this is only a block from city hall!"
Another said he "got scammed along with a boatload of others near the cruise ship pier, number 31. You should have seen the looks on the tourists' faces. This was their first experience with San Francisco. What a welcome!"
And several made comments like this, saying they "Think the problem is with law enforcement and their unwillingness to arrest and prosecute these crooks."
When we asked Captain Dillon about that, he said: "The crimes are misdemeanors, obtaining money under false pretenses. So it requires police to have a citizens arrest from a victim. To prosecute a case like this is very difficult to develop the evidence and the witnesses and the victims."
But we pointed out that some people who emailed us said they did call the police and didn't get a response for a couple of hours. Captain Dillon told us: "There are times because they are prioritizing the calls that there is a shooting in the district or some other type of serious crime the officers just aren't going to be available to respond."
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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