Ticket trouble

[Jrriddle21]

Hello Realpolice and others,

I have a question if you don't mind helping me out.
6 months ago I was at a public park playing disc golf with my friends. We had a couple beers in our bag and were out enjoying the day. Someone called us in saying we had alcohol and a police officer came to us, out in the woods where the disc golf course is located, and issued us a ticket for having a open container in a public park and made us pour what beer we had out. The ticket was for 75 some dollars, I paid it and thought everything was alright. Turns out this ticket went on my driving record as an open container in a vehicle, and my insurance company will drop me if I can't prove otherwise because they see this equal to a DUI.
I do not have a copy of my ticket and I am trying to contact my local police department to get one but it is very obvious that there were no vehicles involved and no intent to drive with open containers.
First off thanks for reading this and hopefully giving me some insight of the situation. But is this just a mistake from the police department. And if it isn't how does this situation apply to having an open container in a vehicle? Any ideas on what i need to do to get this taken care of?

[realpolice]

You could request under the Freedom of Information Act at the police department a copy of the report to give to your insurance company. If that doesn't prove the case, you could approach the actual officer who issued the ticket, and request him to write a short letter to the insurance company explaining it was not in a vehicle.

[Piggy]

I can't see the ticket helping you much because that's the actual charge. I would suggest two things. The first thing I would do is go to the clerk of the court where the case was heard. Even if you didn't go to court and just paid a fine they will still have the docket on file. Provided you get a decent court clerk, you should be able to pay a few bucks and get a copy of the documents in the court record. Specifically look for the probable cause affidavit. The docket folder may also have a copy of the police report. Get copies of the documents and see if they will certify the copies. If not, just try regular copies.

Take the copies to your insurance company and see if that will help. I doubt it had anything to do with a police error. More likely it has to do with the statute you were charged under or the way it was sent through from the court.

Your insurance company still has the option to drop you and there isn't anything the court or Police can do about that. However if you can prove your side of the case and show a vehicle wasn't involved, they may have a little more sympathy for your case.