Viral Post of Illegal Parker at Garden City Leads to Ticket, and Self Reflection

Image has been cropped.

CRANSTON, RI—Not long after Talia Coccia shared the photo, it was out of her hands.

In the end, justice was served. Cranston police said on Tuesday night in a post on their Facebook page that the driver of the white Kia illegally parked in Garden City Center on Christmas Eve was issued a ticket after an investigation that began when the photo was shared through the department’s social media channels.

The photo shows a woman sitting in a wheelchair next to her tailpipe, unable to reach her driver’s side door because the offending Kia is too close. The Kia is parked atop the marked access aisle adjacent to the handicapped spot in which the disabled woman’s Saturn is parked. She sits in her chair with her back to the camera. The picture is both heartbreaking and aggravating. Without context, it’s perfectly framed to incite online rage. And that’s exactly what happened.

Coccia said she now regrets posting the photo for one reason.

“In posting it I hurt the woman who was legally parked because she is a very strong and independent woman and she appears defenseless in the photo,” Coccia said in a public post on her own Facebook page.

In recent days, Coccia has been trying in vain to stop the photo from spreading, removing the post from her own page and asking friends to do likewise. The family of the woman in the wheelchair, while thankful for the support, were understandably a little uneasy with one personal moment being put on public display.

Coccia said that at the time it just seemed like the right thing to do.

“I am so very sorry about that and I never, not in a million years thought that it would be shared thousands of times. I just did what I would want someone to do for my own mother who is disabled and has a handicap sticker,” she wrote.

There is a lesson, maybe. “Hopefully it makes people think about how things that might be a small deal to them could be a huge inconvenience to others. I sure know I will from now on,” Coccia said.

The owner of the Kia, who has not been identified by police, commented on one share of the photo over the long weekend and said that she got the OK from what she described as an officer at the scene. In fact, she said, she has a handicapped placard herself. Lashing out, she said people didn’t know the whole story and said such a degree of criticism was unfair. She too, like Coccia, was feeling the heat from the online deluge.

But, in the end, it was a parking violation after all, and Cranston police said the concerned citizens who brought it to their attention deserve thanks.

“We regularly assign officers specifically to monitor handicap parking in shopping centers across the city. Our officers issued 9 handicap parking violations on Christmas Eve alone and will continue to monitor businesses for these violations. If someone observes a vehicle parked in a handicap parking space without a handicap placard prominently displayed, they should contact us right away and we will dispatch a car,” police said. “They should not approach an occupied vehicle and if they can take a photo of the vehicle in the spot and send to us via Facebook, we will follow up.”