Lafayette Police Chief Says Pedestrians Have Rights, Too

Proving he has a sense of humor as well as a deep and abiding respect for his mandate to uphold the law in town, Lafayette Police Chief Eric Christensen sojourned down to Mt. Diablo Blvd. and Moraga Road one recent commute hour and watched the game many residents call "Pedestrian Ping-Pong."

The chief's sense of humor came through in his findings from the evening, along with a new sense of mission for what he said is one of the town's most prolific problems, when he wrote about his experience in Steve Falk's City Manager's Friday.

"I sat there for a long time and watched the drivers as they approached the intersection to make their turn," the chief wrote. "It took some time, and I had to used my finest powers of deduction, but I finally recognized what the problem is. It’s the drivers."

The chief was particularly unimpressed by the number of cell phone addicts, rearward facing "stop touching your brother" drivers and those he saw actually shouting at pedestrians to "hurry up" as that red light kept them from their evening Pilates class.

"My big takeaway this week is that walking through a crosswalk shouldn’t be like a video game," the chief wrote, "and so we here in the Lafayette Police Department are going to concentrate on crosswalk violations for a while. People need to slow down, take their time, and be respectful of the pedestrians among us... so, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your teenage drivers: we who wear the blue uniforms are on the hunt for crosswalk law violators. And, since you asked: yes, that one motor officer will be hiding in those bushes next to the crosswalk."

Now you know. Don't say we didn't tell you.