LAPD officers who complained about ticket quotas are awarded $2 million

[Disclaimer]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ticket-quotas-20110412,0,2790462.story

Much more to the story, but here's a summary to see if you want to read more..

LAPD officers who complained about ticket quotas are awarded $2 million

The veteran motorcycle officers alleged in a lawsuit that they were punished with bogus performance reviews, threats of reassignment and other forms of harassment after objecting to demands from commanding officers that they write a certain number of tickets each day.

The best burn though...

The verdict dealt the city a particularly harsh blow since lawyers in the city attorney's office had rejected an offer from Smith to settle the case for $500,000, said Paul Weber, president of the union that represents rank-and-file officers.

[NinjaNick]

wow! Quotas

[Jst2fst]

thats a shame

[Tpoppa]

Quotas happen way more often than most people want to believe.

I'm really suprised that the ruling went against the city. Good Stuff!

[Steve Butters]

thats a shame

its a shame that good police officers stood up for their beliefs and got 4x the amount of compensation they asked for from the dept. for harassing them?

you fail. good on them, im glad they had the nerve to stand up for the people like they did.

[AndyJ]

its a shame that good police officers stood up for their beliefs and got 4x the amount of compensation they asked for from the dept. for harassing them?

you fail. good on them, im glad they had the nerve to stand up for the people like they did.

+1

(could be he meant that the cops being harassed for not applying selective taxation was a shame, though)

[FZRMatt]

Quotas happen way more often than most people want to believe.

I'm really suprised that the ruling went against the city. Good Stuff!

Quotas are illegal. I have heard of small town/municipalities that rely on tickets as a source of income "suggesting" that a certain number of tickets be written, but quotas are illegal.

[John]

lol honestly that means absolutely nothing.

its illegal to plant evidence but that did not stop the rampart scandal ya know?

apparently its only wrong if you get caught

[Steve Butters]

i had a westerville cop tell me that they dont have "quotas" but that he is "supposed" to write a certain amount of tickets per month

also heard from a columbus cop that they have to write a certain amount of tickets...i got pulled over once and the columbus cop wrote me 4 or 5 tickets all for BS and then flat out told me if i contest them in court he wont show up so i wont get in any trouble.......asked another columbus cop about that and he said theyre supposed to write a certain amount of tickets, and that as long as they write them theyre in the clear, they dont actually have to stick

[John]

i had a westerville cop tell me that they dont have "quotas" but that he is "supposed" to write a certain amount of tickets per month

thats how i always figured it worked. they wont come out and say "write 20 tickets a month", but they would say something like "based on our research, a good officer should write 20 tickets a month".

[Jst2fst]

its a shame that good police officers stood up for their beliefs and got 4x the amount of compensation they asked for from the dept. for harassing them?

you fail. good on them, im glad they had the nerve to stand up for the people like they did.

I'm not saying the officiers are a shame for standing up for themselves. I like that they put their foot down and said enough is enough. I in no way condone the actions of forcing police officers to make a daily quota. It's not necessary to threaten them with empty threats so the department has funds from tickets coming in daily.

[FZRMatt]

i had a westerville cop tell me that they dont have "quotas" but that he is "supposed" to write a certain amount of tickets per month

also heard from a columbus cop that they have to write a certain amount of tickets...i got pulled over once and the columbus cop wrote me 4 or 5 tickets all for BS and then flat out told me if i contest them in court he wont show up so i wont get in any trouble.......asked another columbus cop about that and he said theyre supposed to write a certain amount of tickets, and that as long as they write them theyre in the clear, they dont actually have to stick

The officer that told you this is full of crap. I work for Columbus and only write tickets if absolutely necessary (multi-car accident, OVI,...etc.

[idodishez]

So it's only coincidence that patrols are so heavy on the first and end

of the month? Yeah right.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Steve Butters]

The officer that told you this is full of crap. I work for Columbus and only write tickets if absolutely necessary (multi-car accident, OVI,...etc.

the officer who wrote the tickets pretty much told me im not actually in trouble....he wrote me up for every little thing he could imagine and then flat out told me that hes not going to show up to the court date...and he didnt, so i got off with everything

he wrote me up for no turn signal (which i did use my signal), no headlights because i turned them on while i was leaving the gas pump instead of turning them on before i put the car in gear, unnecessary squealing of tires (which i think was BS anyways, it was pouring rain and my tires lost traction for half a second in a rwd mustang....i think that may be it, but im not sure...i just know he was finding everything he could....interrogated me about where i was going, if i had been drinking, why im out so late, etc etc etc.....dude held me up for 20 minutes on the side of the road for basically nothing....then he told me at the end of the stop that he is not going to show up to court and that if i fight the tickets i will be good to go....and he wasnt lying, i didnt get hit with anything

Edited April 13, 2011 by Steve Butters

[swingset]

This is the inherent flaw with fines for traffic enforcement. As long as you're taking money for violations, the temptation will be there to fleece the sheep.

The fines are, in most cases, quite outrageous which is another issue.

Follow the money.

[FZRMatt]

the officer who wrote the tickets pretty much told me im not actually in trouble....he wrote me up for every little thing he could imagine and then flat out told me that hes not going to show up to the court date...and he didnt, so i got off with everything

he wrote me up for no turn signal (which i did use my signal), no headlights because i turned them on while i was leaving the gas pump instead of turning them on before i put the car in gear, unnecessary squealing of tires (which i think was BS anyways, it was pouring rain and my tires lost traction for half a second in a rwd mustang....i think that may be it, but im not sure...i just know he was finding everything he could....interrogated me about where i was going, if i had been drinking, why im out so late, etc etc etc.....dude held me up for 20 minutes on the side of the road for basically nothing....then he told me at the end of the stop that he is not going to show up to court and that if i fight the tickets i will be good to go....and he wasnt lying, i didnt get hit with anything

It is funny, usually when an officer does that, he is hitting you with everything he can so that you will fight it and he will get court time (I think that is BULLSHIT!) (writing tickets for that reason, not court time). He wrote you what on paper is about $375 worth of tickets. You of course are going to fight it in court, and he gets court time for showing up. Was it one of our freeway cars by any chance?

There are a lot of officers that are "stat" driven. Meaning, they feel that they look like a better officer in other officers eyes. It drives me nuts to hear "I had 4 felony and 15 misdemeanor arrests this week!" WHO GIVES A SHIT! I am a public servant and my job is to help protect the people of my city. Granted, making felony arrests does aid in that, but it isn't everything. I am a cop and proud of it! And the vast majority of officers are good cops also! However, there are a few shit-heads in every department that make us all look bad. It only takes ONE bad cop to make the public forget about all of the sacrifices that ALL of the good cops have made. I am guessing that most of you dont' know that so far this year there have been 58 officers killed in the line of duty (on track to be a record year). Of those, 27 have been murdered (gun fire). However, I bet most of you know that one officer from our department was caught by a news crew watching porn on his personal computer in his marked cruiser (not saying he is a bad cop, actually just the opposite. Only illustrating a point). We shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes.

Back to the original post. Quotas are illegal.

Sorry for the rant!

[John]

Back to the original post. Quotas are illegal.

again, that means nothing. lots of stuff is illegal. that doesnt mean it doesnt happen.

it only stops when someone gets caught, and maybe not even then.

[Carwhore]

i talked with a retired sheriff. He told me that there are "performance standards" no quota's. Basically if one guy there is writing 10 tickets a week, and two other people are doing 9 and 4. Well the guy that is doing 4 has to improve or he will be forced to either switch loactions or other means.

[Cheech]

again, that means nothing. lots of stuff is illegal. that doesnt mean it doesnt happen.

it only stops when someone gets caught, and maybe not even then.

Bingo. Speeding is illegal too, but I'm sure you've done it.

You have to fix the real problem, and that is that police departments control their own revenue stream. Go back to ticket revenue going to the state, not the municipality and PD's having a standard budget like the fire department and you'll see this issue go away. While we're on the subject, eliminating the batshit crazy asset forfeiture laws wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The amount of militarization in American police forces is incredible, and they spend like the DoD to boot.

[shittygsxr]

call me crazy but I think that instead of awarding that money to the poor officers they should have given it to the "over ticketed" public.

[FZRMatt]

Bingo. Speeding is illegal too, but I'm sure you've done it.

You have to fix the real problem, and that is that police departments control their own revenue stream. Go back to ticket revenue going to the state, not the municipality and PD's having a standard budget like the fire department and you'll see this issue go away. While we're on the subject, eliminating the batshit crazy asset forfeiture laws wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The amount of militarization in American police forces is incredible, and they spend like the DoD to boot.

You are correct, the city does get our money. However, the police department doesn't get anything. It all goes into the general fund which we don't see a dime of. If a cruiser is totaled from a drunk driver or an officer has an accident, the city gets the money and we don't get a new cruiser. The general fund is what the mayor uses for his "pet" projects.

[Cheech]

You are correct, the city does get our money. However, the police department doesn't get anything. It all goes into the general fund which we don't see a dime of. If a cruiser is totaled from a drunk driver or an officer has an accident, the city gets the money and we don't get a new cruiser. The general fund is what the mayor uses for his "pet" projects.

And, in order to collect on that money, I see that Hilliard conveniently uses kangaroo Mayor's Courts. I understand that your department doesn't get the money directly, however the revenue flow doesn't get past the local city government who puts pressure directly on the PD to keep the flow coming.

Either way, the result is the same: Government (or a governmental entity vis a vis the PD) extracting extra funding from the populace behind the guise of "public safety".

[FZRMatt]

i talked with a retired sheriff. He told me that there are "performance standards" no quota's. Basically if one guy there is writing 10 tickets a week, and two other people are doing 9 and 4. Well the guy that is doing 4 has to improve or he will be forced to either switch loactions or other means.

I did forget to mention earlier that we (Columbus) are actually discouraged from "stacking" or writing multiple charges. Again, they can not order us not to just as they can not order us to write tickets. Again, we don't have quotas, we are free to write as many tickets as we want.

[Steve Butters]

It is funny, usually when an officer does that, he is hitting you with everything he can so that you will fight it and he will get court time (I think that is BULLSHIT!) (writing tickets for that reason, not court time). He wrote you what on paper is about $375 worth of tickets. You of course are going to fight it in court, and he gets court time for showing up. Was it one of our freeway cars by any chance?

There are a lot of officers that are "stat" driven. Meaning, they feel that they look like a better officer in other officers eyes. It drives me nuts to hear "I had 4 felony and 15 misdemeanor arrests this week!" WHO GIVES A SHIT! I am a public servant and my job is to help protect the people of my city. Granted, making felony arrests does aid in that, but it isn't everything. I am a cop and proud of it! And the vast majority of officers are good cops also! However, there are a few shit-heads in every department that make us all look bad. It only takes ONE bad cop to make the public forget about all of the sacrifices that ALL of the good cops have made. I am guessing that most of you dont' know that so far this year there have been 58 officers killed in the line of duty (on track to be a record year). Of those, 27 have been murdered (gun fire). However, I bet most of you know that one officer from our department was caught by a news crew watching porn on his personal computer in his marked cruiser (not saying he is a bad cop, actually just the opposite. Only illustrating a point). We shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes.

Back to the original post. Quotas are illegal.

Sorry for the rant!

i have nothing but respect for police - until the red and blues come on, then i only have respect if i realize i cant book it and get away lol

but really, i dont know what his deal was...he was a real young guy so maybe he was trying to look good in his first week or something.... he pulled me over on e broad st in reynoldsburg at like 3am leaving a gas station

[Steve Butters]

I did forget to mention earlier that we (Columbus) are actually discouraged from "stacking" or writing multiple charges. Again, they can not order us not to just as they can not order us to write tickets. Again, we don't have quotas, we are free to write as many tickets as we want.

is that your dept. only or is that in general?

ive noticed that besides that one time, ive never had a cop write me up for multiple things...ive been stopped by columbus, franklin county sheriff, whitehall, new albany, gahanna, pataskala, delaware county sheriff......damn....no wonder my insurance rates sucked when i was in high school

overall - theyve all been easy to deal with except the franklin county sheriff....i think he was jealous of my car, and he got pissed when he realized it was in my name and when he asked me who paid for it i told him i bought it myself....he was a prick