Victim’s ordeal: robbed, stabbed — then ticketed
Anthony Edgar De Guzman spent 15 days in the hospital after a stranger robbed and stabbed him on the steps of his house in San Francisco’s Excelsior district.
Then the city dealt him another fresh wound: a $79 parking ticket, delivered while De Guzman was in intensive care recovering from emergency surgery.
The 68yearold security guard had legally parked in a streetcleaning zone when he arrived home from work at 1 a.m. on a bonecold December morning. De Guzman intended to move his 1998 BMW before noon that day, when the parking prohibition would kick in. He didn’t anticipate that an intruder would approach him on his
front stairs, ask for directions to Hunters Point, then grab him in a headlock and thrust a hunting knife into his left side. The suspect stole his wallet, phone and watch.
De Guzman endured four days in intensive care and 11 days in a regular ward. He will stay out of work until March. But now, he glances nervously around whenever he leaves the house. He recounts the tale in a matteroffact tone — until he gets to the part about the parking ticket tucked on his windshield. Then his voice quavers.
“They have no empathy,” De Guzman said.
Officials at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency have turned down his requests to nullify the citation, though De Guzman’s niece told them her uncle had been violently stabbed moments after parking the car. She also submitted a case number and contact information for the detective investigating the crime.
“After reviewing your protest, the department has determined that your vehicle was cited for parking during the posted time for street cleaning,” officials wrote in a letter to De Guzman on Jan. 22. “The circumstances you presented in your protest were insufficient to overcome the validity of the citation. The review has confirmed that the citation was properly issued and is valid.”
The letter called for full payment within 25 days to avoid further penalties. De Guzman has the right to an administrative hearing to further review the citation, but he has to pay the fine first. He could get reimbursed if his appeal at the hearing is successful.
To De Guzman and family members who are helping him, the city’s response seems callous. Already shaken from a violent crime, they now find themselves in a bureaucratic purgatory.
“I totally get that there’s a process, but there’s also situational circumstances,” said Michelle Barrientos, De Guzman’s niece. She helped contest the citation, first calling the agency’s customerservice department, then filling out the online form, then calling customer service again after it was denied.
The odds of overturning a parking citation are not favorable in San Francisco: fewer than a third of those contested. The city issued 1.2 million parking tickets in the last fiscal year, most of which were paid, generating $99.2 million in revenue.
A relatively small portion — 64,346 —went through an administrative review at the request of the motorist. Of those, 14,993 were dismissed. The
SFMTA held 9,537 hearings last year for motorists who challenged the findings of a review. Those hearings resulted in 4,128 dismissals. In all, the city dismissed 30% of challenged citations.
Barrientos works in public service and considers herself savvier than the average person trying to dispute a parking ticket. But even she was flummoxed by the response. When officials denied the request, Barrientos called the transportation agency’s customer service department to find out what she could have done differently.
“The representative I spoke with was pretty stone,” she said, meaning unsympathetic. “He said, ‘We really don’t actually approve protests, unless it’s a code violation’ ” by the city.
In San Francisco, as in other cities, protesting a ticket can be difficult and timeconsuming. The Municipal Transportation Agency provides a web page with instructions, advising people to upload photos, receipts or other evidence to support their claim. It also links to an online form to request police reports if a vehicle gets a ticket after being stolen. But the page doesn’t account for sudden catastrophes that impede people from moving their cars.
Officials at the SFMTA review protests on a casebycase basis, said spokeswoman Erica Kato. Staff investigates claims of missing signs or faded curb paint, and dismisses the ticket if a claim is valid.
A customer service clerk told Barrientos that her uncle’s claim was not valid.
When a Chronicle reporter called the SFMTA, however, Kato described additional options. She said he could request a hearing before a neutral officer to appeal the decision, and show a copy of his police report (he had provided only his case number) or his hospital record.
But he would have to pay the $79 fine first. Lowincome residents — those whose gross income is at or below $24,980 for a household of one — can get a hearing without paying first, but De Guzman does not qualify.
Barrientos said she wished the customerservice person she called at the beginning of the ordeal had told her exactly what papers she needed to submit.
De Guzman has until Feb. 16 to pay before the city starts piling on late fees.