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Ferndale police tweet picture calling out officer for parking decision

Posted at 5:31 PM, Jun 29, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-30 10:24:39-04

A tweet from the Ferndale police department is getting a lot of attention after they called out one of their own for parking in a handicap spot.

Sergeant Baron Brown says the officer was making a coffee stop when he noticed there was no place to park.

Someone took a picture of the car and posted it on social media. Brown says when they found out they took action.

The department decided to post the picture on Twitter because it was the right thing to do.

"It's not in our value system to do stuff like this. It was a hastily made, poorly made decision," Brown says.

Brown hopes other departments will be more open with their community not just when things are good, but bad too.

"Hiding things like this sweeping them under the rug that's not an option today. We didn't make this publicly known for any other reason than it's the right thing to do. I think, as time goes on, more and more police departments are going to handle things like this. We can't hide. It happened, it was a mistake, there was no malice in the officer’s heart."

Parking in a handicap spot illegally is a $100 fine in Ferndale.

Brown says they cannot release how they disciplined the officer.