New York Times media reporter and Lena Dunham BFF
The lesser-known Carr says the trouble all began when he was on a trip to DC and had tickets to a Nationals game that got rained out. That left him with $360 worth of tickets to a make-up game that coincided with his departure date. So he decided to sell them.
Now, had he listed them on StubHub
When Carr was approached by a police officer who asked how much he was selling the tickets for, he decided honesty was the best policy and said, "Love to get face value." And with that, he was promptly arrested, handcuffed, booked, mug shotted, fingerprinted, and jailed for more than two hours — all over a $50 ticket.
The seemingly large waste of tax dollars was necessitated, according to the cop who arrested him, because of a zero tolerance policy instituted after outrageous scalping occurred at Taylor Swift's show at the Verizon Center in May. Interestingly, the cop also told Carr that he would have been within his legal rights had he stood 15 feet away or not put a price on the tickets. But whether you blame Taylor Swift or not, the cop apparently had "no discretion" to not arrest and book Carr. And an arrest for a minor crime like scalping — which is perfectly legal online — involves dozens of law enforcement officers and can cost more than an average of $2,500 a person. The worst part is, the policy clearly isn't stopping DC's scalpers — Carr writes that he witnessed tons of ticket-sellers hawking the same tickets he had outside the stadium the next morning.
[TWP, photo via AP]