NYC Jails Woman Overnight For Parking Tickets

New York City is notorious for its no-nonsense police department, and one woman is expressing her frustration with policies after she spent a night in jail over a long-forgotten ticket.

27-year-old Krystle Garcia was ticketed ten years ago, way back when she was a teen driver. Her offense, the one that landed her in central booking for 14 hours?

Did she leave the scene of an accident, drive drunk, or speed down the FDR on the seat of her car, screaming out the sunroof “death to y’all?”

No, Garcia spent a night in jail in New York City because she forgot about a ticket for failure to carry an insurance card. Now the New Jersey woman is sharing her harrowing experience in the city pokey in hopes that the NYPD will be more mindful of locking up people with simple outstanding tickets in the future.

Of her experience in the big house, Garcia says that it’s certainly not one she’d like to repeat:

“It was horrifying… I sat in a holding cell for 14 hours with people who had gun charges, who were fighting each other.”

Garcia, who says she forgot about the original low-level summons, explains that she has had no difficulty engaging in insurance or Jersey DMV transactions since her outstanding ticket has been outstanding — and that she’s even paid subsequent tickets without incident:

“I’ve received tickets in New York and I’ve paid them… Couldn’t they have just impounded my car instead of taking me and putting me with other people who commit actual crimes?”

After her night in jail over the traffic ticket, Garcia paid a fine of $155 and now has a clean record.