One New York mom was feeding her baby when a police officer came and gave her a ticket. To make matters worse, the woman was almost towed.
Guillermina Rodriguez’s baby was only three weeks old at the time of this incident.
Mother and her baby were driving through midtown Manhattan when the hungry baby started crying. Guillermina, a mother of four already, recognized that her newborn was hungry.
Unforgettable ride
The mom had no idea breastfeeding would turn her into a newsworthy story.
Rodriguez said about the incident, “There was an immense amount of traffic. It took me like 45 minutes to an hour just to get from 42nd to 30th Street.”
She continued, ” “Even though I saw it was a commercial area, I’m like, ‘I’m not obstructing the traffic… Let me just stay there, and I can breastfeed the baby there.'”
Mom went back to her baby
After a few minutes, an NYPD tow truck pulled up. The mom said, “He’s backing up to tow my truck, so as I am in this position breastfeeding now, I jump over to the front seat to honk so he can see, you know, like, ‘Don’t tow my truck, I’m in here.'”
That’s when the ticket agent approached Rodriguez and gave her a $115 ticket for standing in a commercial zone.
The NYPD defended themselves
After the news broke, the NYPD stated that the agent wrote a ticket before seeing that the woman was breastfeeding.
Traffic agents cannot void tickets, and there was nothing left to be done.
Rodriguez hopes the ticket agents learned their lesson
The mom expressed that the NYPD could have been more sensitive. However, she hopes they will learn from her example. She said, “Nursing should be urgent enough to exempt a fine.”
Do you think it was fair to issue a ticket to a breastfeeding mom?