I've had to deal with this. I ended up just paying them because the process for getting them cleared was so hard. I had to snail-mail a request for a police report... like, you can't even request over the phone or online. not sure if it has changed since, but what a pain.

It's messed up that this would happen, but I could _somewhat_ understand some hourly worker at the city not being able to do anything about it. But the fact that a judge wouldn't dismiss all of this is completely asinine, criminal if you ask me.

We all know that carjackers are not likely to follow traffic safety laws upon driving away with a victim's automobile.

This situation should never have gotten this far along. Sounds like something that the mayor or the car owner's city councilmember should be able to resolve with a few phone calls.

Far too often victims of crime are revictimized by the system. Takes either media attention or councilperson involvement to make waves.

I had to do this once. I needed a police report for an insurance claim. The officer who filed the report gave me a note with the report number on it and a number to call to get the report.

I called the number, and it was just a voice message with instructions to mail the request (and a list of what the request needed to include) as well as a self-addressed, stamped envelope and a check.

Honestly, what the fuck? If you can't put this process on a website, at least put the instructions on a website! God damn.

yeah, it's crazy how bad many city government systems are (not just baltimore). the US Conference of Mayors should really pool together to contract the creation of tools for handling basic city functions. or maybe the federal government should do it.