To whom it may concern;

Every morning, I walk down Main street between 200 and 300 South in Salt Lake City on my way to work, and every morning, there is a police car parked in one of the metered spots in front of the silver building. Some mornings, the cruiser is the standard black cruiser. Sometimes, the car is a supervisor’s car. Sometimes the car is unmarked, but you can tell it’s a police car, what with the emergency lights hidden in the top of the back window and the low-profile radio antennas mounted on the back of the trunk that no one else needs.

The car is sometimes parked in the red zone in front of the fire hydrant, though this stopped for a couple months after I sent an email to the SLCPD via the website. However, the car is still occasionally in that red zone. Some mornings, the car isn’t in a metered spot, but parked in the loading/unloading zone farther down the street.

Now, If I arrived in the area during normal business hours, I suppose I could understand the presence of the car, but I walk down the street between 7 and 8 in the morning. Sometimes I pass by again around between 9 and 10 am and the car is still there. This car is there every morning almost without fail. Over the last year, I’ve only noticed the absence of the cruiser maybe five times. It is such a rare occurrence that it is notable.

I have tried to come up with scenarios that would account for the presence of a patrolman in the area at that precise time. Perhaps he parks here to walk nearly two blocks up the street to the Starbucks. Perhaps he is standing guard for an important diplomat who is staying at the Monaco hotel on the corner. Perhaps he has a friend in the law offices in the 222 South Main building, and pops in every morning to shoot the breeze for a few hours after his shift ends at 7 am. 

On some days, the car remains until noon, and oftentimes, there is a car there around 4 o’clock in the afternoon when I pass by again on my way home from work; though it is unknown if it is the same car from the morning. I’ll start recording the car numbers and the times I see them there, though I won’t be able to ascertain the number of the unmarked cars.

In conclusion, I thought I would take a moment to comment on the strange pattern of this particular car and the apparent absence of the officer to which it is assigned.

Cheers,

The Masked Crusader.

[Edit] P.S. Please read my addendum to this letter here.