I fought the law....and I won.

I didn't comment on this before, since I didn't want to endanger any pending hearings.

On October 30, my wife and I went to pilar_cruz's place, cuz she's cool and stuff and recovering from surgery. I parked my car very carefully on NW 22nd between Johnson and Kearney, making sure I didn't park too far from the curb or block the driveway. I noticed the signs said "NO PARKING - 8 am - 5 pm", and figured it was OK to park there - it was around 7 pm.

When I came back, the car was gone - the police had it towed, and towed by the wondrous Retriever Towing. More here and here.

It cost me $153 to retrieve the car, plus another $60 to challenge the parking ticket and request a court date. When I got back home, I called the officer's cell phone, and I asked him if he had any pictures of the car "blocking the driveway", which is what they claimed. He said, "I don't have to take any pictures."

I had a hearing this afternoon to challenge the validity of the tow - thanks to pilar_cruz and grishnash, I had photos of where I believed the car to have been located (I took them with the car in the exact same place where I believed it to be when it was towed.) There were no photos of my car blocking a driveway.

The hearings officer said that since there was equally compelling evidence either way, he would invalidate the tow, and that one picture was particularly compelling.

So, as they say on the Internet, "Pictures or it didn't happen."