Applying the Tow-Away Bulletin: Discretion, Duty, and a Dangling Modifier
You are an auxiliary officer in the Riverside district and must apply Special Order 24-07, the tow-away bulletin, during today's 14:00–22:00 shift. Three lines of the order matter most.
Line 4: "Vehicles parked within fifteen feet of a fire hydrant, or blocking a driveway apron, may be cited and, when the owner cannot be located within ten minutes, towed at the owner's expense."
Line 9: "Officers shall photograph the hydrant's visibility from the curb before authorizing removal."
Line 12: "The officer observed the vehicle parked in front of the hydrant walking east on Cedar Avenue."
At 14:20 you find a sedan with its rear bumper twelve feet from a hydrant; the car also covers roughly half of a driveway apron. The registered owner does not answer the phone, and ten minutes pass with no one coming out of the nearby shops. Your partner says the word "may" makes the tow optional, and adds that the lot is full and the tow company is running forty minutes behind, so you should just write the citation and leave.
1. Line 12 contains a misplaced modifier. Identify it, explain what the sentence accidentally says, and rewrite the sentence so the meaning is unambiguous.
Read the worked answer
The participial phrase "walking east on Cedar Avenue" is placed next to "the hydrant," and a participial phrase attaches to the noun nearest it. Read literally, the sentence says the hydrant was walking east on Cedar Avenue. The officer's action has been attached to the wrong actor.
The fix is to put the phrase where its doer is the subject of the main clause:
"Walking east on Cedar Avenue, the officer observed the vehicle parked in front of the hydrant."
An acceptable alternative that keeps the original word order is: "The officer, walking east on Cedar Avenue, observed the vehicle parked in front of the hydrant."
Test any rewrite by asking who was walking? If the answer is not the subject of the main clause, the modifier is still dangling. Note that moving the phrase changes nothing about the facts; it changes only who the grammar says performed the action, which in a report is exactly the point.
2. Your partner says "may be cited and towed" makes the tow optional. Is the tow discretionary, mandatory, or prohibited on these facts? Use the order's own verbs and identify which step is mandatory regardless of your choice.
Read the worked answer
The tow is discretionary, but the discretion is bounded. "May" grants authority without imposing a duty, so no supervisor can fault you for citing without towing, and none can fault you for towing once the condition is met. The "when" clause is a condition precedent, not a command: it defines when the tow authority becomes available (owner not located within ten minutes). That condition is satisfied - the owner did not answer and ten minutes elapsed.
What is not discretionary is Line 9. "Shall photograph" is mandatory and applies "before authorizing removal," so if you tow, the photograph must already exist. Your partner is therefore half right: skipping the tow is permissible, but skipping the photograph is a violation if a tow occurs.
Separately, the tow-company backlog and the full lot are not criteria in the order. Discretion must be exercised on the hazard the order names - hydrant access and driveway blockage - not on convenience.
3. Write the two sentences you would enter in your activity log: one recording the discretionary decision, one recording the mandatory step. Keep each under 25 words and explain what makes them defensible.
Read the worked answer
Sample entries:
"14:32 - Photographed hydrant sightline from curb, 400 Cedar Ave, per SO 24-07 line 9." "14:45 - Owner not located in 10 minutes; authorized tow for hydrant and apron violation; citation issued."
What makes them defensible:
- Active voice with the officer as subject. Each sentence says who did what, so a reviewer or hearing officer can trace the action to a person.
- The criterion is on the record. "Not located in 10 minutes" shows the condition precedent in Line 4 was actually satisfied rather than assumed.
- The mandatory and discretionary acts are separated. If the tow is later challenged, the photograph entry stands on its own and proves Line 9 compliance.
- Times and location are specific. "Approximately" and vague place references are what get reports sent back for correction.
A combined sentence ("photographed and towed the vehicle") would bury the mandatory step inside the discretionary one and make compliance harder to verify.