Police compete to give highest quantity/most serious tickets
03-01-2011, 02:16 PM
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Police compete to give highest quantity/most serious tickets
A memo discovered in Bell police files appears to outline a game in which police officers compete to issue tickets, impound cars and arrest motorists.
Titled the “Bell Police Department Baseball Game,” the memo assigns “singles,” “doubles,” “triples” and “home runs” to progressively more serious infractions, starting with parking tickets and moving on to vehicle impounds and felony arrests of drivers. “Non-performers,” the memo says, are “sent for minor league rehab stint.”
The discovery of the memo comes as the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether Bell police violated the civil rights of residents through aggressive towing of cars and code enforcement. Part of the investigation focuses on claims by some officers that the department had quotas for issuing tickets and impounding cars, which they said was done to raise revenue for the city. Some officers said they were reprimanded when they did not meet goals.
It’s the first document suggesting a concerted effort to have officers pull over more cars, though it’s unclear who wrote the memo and whether department brass condoned it.
At least two Bell police officials said they were familiar with the memo, which they said circulated a few years ago. Bell Police Capt. Anthony Miranda said he thought a few patrolmen wrote it “to challenge themselves” and when department leaders found out about it, they “squashed it.”
“I think guys created it on their own and when the administration heard about it, they put a stop to it,” added Lt. Ty Henshaw. Department leaders said “It’s cool and fun and we appreciate the motivation, but it’s not going to look good.”
The Times obtained a copy of the one-page memo. The L.A. County district attorney’s office said it received the document last week and launched an investigation. Prosecutors have already charged eight current and former Bell officials with public corruption, including former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, who earned more than $800,000 a year.
After the Bell salary scandal broke last summer, residents complained that police improperly towed cars and fined drivers and charged them exorbitant impound fees in an effort to boost city revenue. One of the most persistent complaints was that police aggressively targeted illegal immigrants, who can’t get licenses in California. Immigrants make up about 50% of Bell’s population.
Bell’s budget shows that over the years the city was generating increased revenue from fees and taxes. City records show that Bell made nearly $1 million in impound fees in fiscal year 2008-09 alone. Bell charged $300 for unlicensed motorists to retrieve their cars, triple what Los Angeles County and neighboring cities charge.
Bell police officers said in interviews in August that they often spent their shifts pulling over drivers for small infractions in the hope that they would turn out to be unlicensed. Although officers didn't look exclusively for immigrants, it was clear that the majority of the drivers pulled over turned out to be illegal immigrants, Officer Kurt Owens said in an interview in August.
“We'd look for younger guys in their 20s and 30s, guys with junkier cars, broken lights, loud music or tinted windows,” he said.
On Monday, Owens said he never saw the memo. “It sounds like a joke; there’s a lot of jokes going around there,” he said.
Titled the “Bell Police Department Baseball Game,” the memo assigns “singles,” “doubles,” “triples” and “home runs” to progressively more serious infractions, starting with parking tickets and moving on to vehicle impounds and felony arrests of drivers. “Non-performers,” the memo says, are “sent for minor league rehab stint.”
The discovery of the memo comes as the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether Bell police violated the civil rights of residents through aggressive towing of cars and code enforcement. Part of the investigation focuses on claims by some officers that the department had quotas for issuing tickets and impounding cars, which they said was done to raise revenue for the city. Some officers said they were reprimanded when they did not meet goals.
It’s the first document suggesting a concerted effort to have officers pull over more cars, though it’s unclear who wrote the memo and whether department brass condoned it.
At least two Bell police officials said they were familiar with the memo, which they said circulated a few years ago. Bell Police Capt. Anthony Miranda said he thought a few patrolmen wrote it “to challenge themselves” and when department leaders found out about it, they “squashed it.”
“I think guys created it on their own and when the administration heard about it, they put a stop to it,” added Lt. Ty Henshaw. Department leaders said “It’s cool and fun and we appreciate the motivation, but it’s not going to look good.”
The Times obtained a copy of the one-page memo. The L.A. County district attorney’s office said it received the document last week and launched an investigation. Prosecutors have already charged eight current and former Bell officials with public corruption, including former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, who earned more than $800,000 a year.
After the Bell salary scandal broke last summer, residents complained that police improperly towed cars and fined drivers and charged them exorbitant impound fees in an effort to boost city revenue. One of the most persistent complaints was that police aggressively targeted illegal immigrants, who can’t get licenses in California. Immigrants make up about 50% of Bell’s population.
Bell’s budget shows that over the years the city was generating increased revenue from fees and taxes. City records show that Bell made nearly $1 million in impound fees in fiscal year 2008-09 alone. Bell charged $300 for unlicensed motorists to retrieve their cars, triple what Los Angeles County and neighboring cities charge.
Bell police officers said in interviews in August that they often spent their shifts pulling over drivers for small infractions in the hope that they would turn out to be unlicensed. Although officers didn't look exclusively for immigrants, it was clear that the majority of the drivers pulled over turned out to be illegal immigrants, Officer Kurt Owens said in an interview in August.
“We'd look for younger guys in their 20s and 30s, guys with junkier cars, broken lights, loud music or tinted windows,” he said.
On Monday, Owens said he never saw the memo. “It sounds like a joke; there’s a lot of jokes going around there,” he said.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...ball-game.html
This is why I hate cops sometimes
03-02-2011, 11:45 AM
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It says they pulled over people for minor infractions - don't commit one and you don't get pulled over. How hard was that? If you happen to be an illegal, you already know and should probably be on extra-good behavior to avoid getting caught.
That said, in this case it looks bad but I'm not against this type of thing under the right conditions. In a department where they genuinely don't have quotas, if the men start it and not the brass, and if it doesn't get silly with like prizes and rewards & such for "winning" then ok. It seems like a good way to liven up an otherwise possibly pretty boring (if dangerous) job.
It reminds me of "searchlight tag" I heard some cops in the California bay area (and probably others, elsewhere) play on a slow crime night. One cop lays low in his patrol car in an alley or w/e and the other(s) look for him by shining their spotlights everywhere to see in the shadows. They're still on patrol, just also playing a game to keep the boredom away.
That said, in this case it looks bad but I'm not against this type of thing under the right conditions. In a department where they genuinely don't have quotas, if the men start it and not the brass, and if it doesn't get silly with like prizes and rewards & such for "winning" then ok. It seems like a good way to liven up an otherwise possibly pretty boring (if dangerous) job.
It reminds me of "searchlight tag" I heard some cops in the California bay area (and probably others, elsewhere) play on a slow crime night. One cop lays low in his patrol car in an alley or w/e and the other(s) look for him by shining their spotlights everywhere to see in the shadows. They're still on patrol, just also playing a game to keep the boredom away.
03-02-2011, 12:25 PM
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I was pulled over more than a dozen times for "Improper Lane Usage", in reality just to check to see if I was doing anything wrong. During these stops I was never ticketed, just harassed. Stuff like this pisses me off.
03-02-2011, 12:33 PM
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Stocker - I read where they compared their infractions against neighboring jurisdictions, and it was insane at how much higher they were. It's suspected that it was a command from the top as a way to increase revenue to support higher salaries (which, btw, is what they were investigating when they found this).
One major problem here is motive, another is the punishment for not meeting the 'quota.'
When my dad worked for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, they were "expected to see a certain number of violations per hour" and a percentage of those were expected to be written and issued. They weren't REQUIRED to, or punished because of it, but it is a way of evaluating the performance of your officers. How else do they know you aren't sitting in a parking lot somewhere sleeping? It's the unreasonably high quotas and rewards for citations that I have a problem with. Our LEOs aren't supposed to be Nazi SS.
I've been pulled over before for the "improper maintenance of a vehicle" - though let off with a warning. It was the only thing the officer could think of as he tailed me for a mile, then ran beside me for a mile, trying to figure out wtf my car was. I didn't have a front bumper on at the time, and half the Veilside kit was installed.
Oh, and his "improper maintenance of a vehicle" was the fact I had zip ties holding my license plate on. They were holding my license plate on firm, not dangling loose in the wind. He couldn't have seen that at night unless he was LOOKING for it. I had just installed the rear bumper and hadn't put screw supports in the license plate area yet. Oh, and he was wrong - there's nothing in the code that says the license plate has to be secured with screws. It does state it has to be horizontal, on the rear bumper (not window or tailgate as minitrucks do).
One major problem here is motive, another is the punishment for not meeting the 'quota.'
When my dad worked for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, they were "expected to see a certain number of violations per hour" and a percentage of those were expected to be written and issued. They weren't REQUIRED to, or punished because of it, but it is a way of evaluating the performance of your officers. How else do they know you aren't sitting in a parking lot somewhere sleeping? It's the unreasonably high quotas and rewards for citations that I have a problem with. Our LEOs aren't supposed to be Nazi SS.
I've been pulled over before for the "improper maintenance of a vehicle" - though let off with a warning. It was the only thing the officer could think of as he tailed me for a mile, then ran beside me for a mile, trying to figure out wtf my car was. I didn't have a front bumper on at the time, and half the Veilside kit was installed.
Oh, and his "improper maintenance of a vehicle" was the fact I had zip ties holding my license plate on. They were holding my license plate on firm, not dangling loose in the wind. He couldn't have seen that at night unless he was LOOKING for it. I had just installed the rear bumper and hadn't put screw supports in the license plate area yet. Oh, and he was wrong - there's nothing in the code that says the license plate has to be secured with screws. It does state it has to be horizontal, on the rear bumper (not window or tailgate as minitrucks do).