A New York woman plans to fight a parking ticket she got while breastfeeding her three-week-old baby in the backseat of a parked SUV in New York City.
Guillermina Rodriguez explained to CBS New York that she had been driving Thursday morning through Midtown Manhattan traffic when her baby started crying in the backseat.
She said that after driving for about 45 minutes to an hour and seeing no end to the traffic in sight, she pulled over into a no-standing commercial zone, according to PIX11.
"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,'" Rodriguez told CBS New York.
Within a few minutes of going into the backseat and starting to breastfeed her child, Rodriquez said a NYPD traffic officer pulled up with a tow truck and, without looking inside her vehicle, they started backing up to tow it.
The mother of four said she jumped over to the front seat to honk the horn and make sure the officer realized she was in there. She told CBS New York that when the officer finally walked over she explained that she was breastfeeding her baby.
“He turned and looks and he’s like ‘oh ok’… puts the ticket on the windshield and leaves,” she explained to CBS New York.
She was left with a $115 ticket for standing in a commercial zone.
A NYPD spokesperson told CBS New York that the traffic agent wrote the ticket before seeing Rodriguez was breastfeeding and traffic agents don't have the authority to voice tickets, so there's nothing that agent could've done.
Rodriguez said she believes officers should consider nursing urgent enough to exempt a fine. She plans to fight the parking ticket.