Tucson's false alarm ordinance went into effect two months ago, but to this point the police haven't been enforcing it.

That all changes on Friday.

The Tucson Police Department announced this week that beginning June 1 it will start assessing fees for any and all false alarm calls it has to respond to within city limits. Those who have registered their alarms (at a cost of $20 per year) get the first falsie for free, but after that it will cost $100 to have the cops show up for nothing. The price then goes up with more and more alarms, with the price even higher if the call is for something other than burglary.

Don't have your alarm registered? Then the first call out, regardless of the situation, will cost $200. But if the user registers that alarm (with the aforementioned $20 annual fee) within 10 days of the false alarm, half of that penalty is erased. The remaining half would be waived if the use takes and completes an Alarm User Awareness Class within 90 days of the incident.

Alarm registration is still available, and can be done in person at a number of places. A full list of registration locations, as well as complete information about the ordinance and its associated penalties, can be found on TPD's Web site.

So, kids, remember: if you're going to trip an alarm, make sure it's at your neighbor's house, not your own.

Tuesday was not a good day to find yourself in a parking lot.

Two men were shot to death in separate, unrelated incidents in a pair of parking lots in the city limits, according to Tucson police.

The first shooting happened just before 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Arcadia Terrace Apartments, 4860 E. Pima, when the deceased an another man got into a fight. Gunshots were heard, and when police arrived they found the victim slumped behind the wheel of a truck he'd been trying to drive away in but instead had crashed into a parked vehicle. The man died at a local hospital, and no information is available on the alleged shooter.

Then, about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, an otherwise ordinary night in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart at 1650 W. Valencia turned deadly when two groups of people got into a shouting match. This inevitably led to one man from each group getting into a fight, which then escalated when a gun was drawn and a 25-year-old man was shot to death. Police say the alleged shooter ran off but surrendered after being confronted by a security guard from a nearby apartment complex.

This seems like a simple concept, but apparently it needs to be pointed out over and over again: when you're over 18 and you have sexual contact with someone under 18, it's illegal, and people are eventually going to find out about it.

Especially in high school.

For the second time this week a local teacher has been arrested on suspicion of sexual conduct with a minor. This time, 23-year-old Flowing Wells district teacher Christina Marie Carbone is accused of having sexual contact with a 16-year-old boy. The student, who attends a TUSD school — not being your own student doesn't make it any less illegal — met Carbone at a social event in March, according to the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

This comes on the heels of the arrest earlier this week of Melissa Ann Dalton, 33, an Ironwood Ridge HS art teacher, for allegedly getting it on with both a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy in her car and her classroom.

Yes, we all know that teenage boys can be dreamy. Just wait until they're of age. Oh, and after they've graduated, or is that no longer make it exciting?

This past Sunday was when Tucson's texting-while-driving ban went into effect. No, this wasn't a April Fool's Day joke, though it would have been a cool one.

If spotted texting (or anything that looks like texting) while behind the wheel, and your vehicle is in motion, Tucson police can pull you over, cite you and give you a $100 ticket. Cause an accident whilst mid-text, and the fine could rise to $250.

The ordinance was passed by the Tucson city council with the hope of cutting down on crashes and deaths associated with distracted driving, but many critics wonder how enforceable it will be, or how often police will pull someone over for such an alleged infraction.

If you get caught in the act, so to speak, and either get pulled over or cited, we want to hear about it. Email us and tell us your story.

Of course, don't send that email from your phone while navigating Tucson's potholed streets.

The area around the east side of Ajo Way and Interstate 19 is a little congested this morning, what with all the Pima County Sheriff's Office vehicles surrounding an urgent care facility with some ... minor damage to its back wall, compliments of an SUV crashing into it during a high-speed chase.

According to PCSO, it all started a little after 2 a.m. when deputies were called to a home on the southwest side in response to a home invasion. Several suspects were later spotted in a white Jeep Cherokee, and after the vehicle failed to stop for deputies it lead them on a chase down Valencia, then onto I-19 and eventually the northbound Ajo exit. It was at that point when the SUV lost control, went over the median and hurtled down a hill and crashed into the back of the urgent care building.

Two people in the SUV were killed, two others were hospitalized, PCSO said.

Thanks to the Arizona Daily Star (it burns to even type that) for posting the surveillance footage of Martha Vazquez's afternoon shopping trip to the Tucson Mall on February 11th.

Below the cut, two additional clips:

If you've ever wanted to have the opportunity to speak freely and frankly with members of local law enforcement — and with some level of anonymity — the Pima County Sheriff's Office is giving you that chance.

At 9 a.m. Tuesday Sgt. Kenneth Coultas from PCSO's Personnel Unit will host a live discussion via the department's Twitter and Facebook accounts for anyone and everyone interested.

The scheduled topic is 'Careers in Law Enforcement,' but if this online chat is like any other I've been involved with, it's likely to devolve into a variety of other topics, not all of which are of a positive tone.

A news release issued by PCSO spokeswoman Dawn Barkman said participants will be asked to stay on topic, and to submit unrelated questions in writing through the department's Web site, but we all know that's not going to be adhered to by the question askers.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski/Sticker by Emilyscookies00
• The evidence

Random pizza menus jammed in the doorjamb and satellite TV offers dangling from the doorknob are bad. But one Tucson solicitor sank to an even lower low by sticking a permanent sticker in the middle of an otherwise pristine front door.

To take matters down another notch, the solicitor was selling Girl Scout cookies. While the thought of Girl Scout cookies would normally leave a warm, cozy feeling in the belly — especially the thin mints — they now instead leave bile in the back of the throat.

Perhaps that’s how dad always felt when forced to coerce his coworkers into buying cookies just so little Emily could get a free subscription to Ranger Rick magazine. I never got the free subscription, by the way.

In any event, the bile rose and the tempers flared when my guy and I tried to pry the sticker from the iron security door of the condo he’s trying to rent. It would not budge.

Most would agree a scummy sticker stuck to the front of the door does not make a good first impression. Unless, of course, the potential tenant wanted to buy Girl Scout cookies.

The Tucson Police Department, still getting its feet wet with this social media thing, has started to dip its toes into deeper waters with its latest addition to Facebook: crime scene video.

This first clip of footage, narrated by TPD Sgt. Matt Ronstadt — who, for my money, is a dead ringer visually and audibly to Saturday Night Live veteran Chris Parnell — is from the scene of Tuesday night's "suspicious death" investigation on West Ajo Way. Police were called to an apartment complex after getting anonymous reports that a woman hadn't been seen in a month, and oh yeah, there's a really foul smell in the air.

(Update, 2 p.m.: TPD has arrested a 25-year-old man, Christopher Aguilar, on suspicion of concealing a dead body, and have officially deemed the case a homicide investigation. No word on who (or what gender) the body was.)

There's not much to see on the video, mostly panning of the complex's parking lot while Ronstadt narrates in his best "I want to be able to tell you more but I can't" tone, but at this point I think it's still a learning process. It's no CSI, but if it's well received (both in terms of YouTube hits — it had 41 as of 8 a.m. Wednesday — and top brass reception) we could be seeing more of this in the future.

So, that raises the question: will Ronstadt start appearing on camera, facing to the side, and then whip off his sunglasses before dropping a clever crime-related quip?

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski

Many motorists have neither patience nor tolerance for pedestrians, with 2010 Tucson Police Department statistics showing seven pedestrians hit and killed by vehicles and 210 hit and injured, with 52 of them hit and runs. Statistics from 2011 are even worse, with at least 16 pedestrians killed by vehicles and 220 injured, with a total of 71 hit and runs.

Man versus car does not fare well for the man.

All that could soon change, at least in a little pocket of town, with Mayor Jonathan Rothchild’s revival of a long-dead proposal of making Congress Street open to pedestrians only. The proposal was shot down in the past, and may be again because it still has one big problem: it’s much too limited.

Shutting off Congress to traffic will only make the die-hard drivers shuttle their vehicles to the surrounding streets, making them more clogged up and blocked than they already are. To truly benefit from transforming any downtown area into a pedestrian-only jubilee, the proposal needs to go the whole hog to get rid of road hogs and make all of downtown vehicle-free.