Evidence, please.
Sure. In my town we have an amusement park which draws a lot of out of town visitors. Down the street from the park is a freeway overpass which for the longest time had NO, zero, zip, nada “NO PARKING” signs or curb markings or anything to tell folks that they should go down the street and pay an extra $20.00 to park. So some would park there. Our meter maid-guy would come along and ticket them. No authority to do so, but he would. Then the city would collect the money. I had been told about it, but never saw it myself. Well, one day I did. The meter maid was there writing tickets with not a single bit of legal authority to do so except his boss’s word. I wrote a VERY stiff letter to the editor and guess what... within two weeks the city came out and painted the curb red. Gee... phony tickets, yet most of the out of towners would just send in the money and not fight them. Free money to the cops and the city. Wow. How cool. But when they were publicly confronted, they went on and caved. Like any bully. And yes, there is documentation of all this. THAT’S how the cops I see do business.