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11.04.05 Police deny ticket quotas, despite e-mail
discussion of them |
By Audrey Wong
FAIRFIELD - Fairfield police are not citing motorists to
meet a ticket quota and police supervisors do not judge
officers by how many tickets they write, department
officials say.
But internal correspondence shows otherwise.
Fairfield Police Chief Bill Gresham said state vehicle
code forbids all law enforcement agencies from using the
number of arrest or citations as the sole basis for
promotion or discipline of officers or parking
enforcement employees.
But on July 5, 2004, Capt. Tom Giugni wrote an e-mail to
lieutenants Michael Hill, Tony Shipp and Paul Bockrath
about traffic citations. He wrote that from May 29 to
June 24 of that year, 16 officers issued nine traffic
citations or fewer. Giugni listed the names of the
officers and the number of tickets they wrote.
“Why are these officers writing so few traffic tickets
and what can we do to get them to write more tickets?”
Giugni wrote.
An attorney wrote to the Fairfield police in August 2004
about evaluating officer on how many tickets they write.
Christopher Miller, who represents the Fairfield Police
Officers Union, mentioned a department e-mail regarding
tickets. Miller cited the vehicle code that prohibits
ticket or arrest quotas.
“The e-mail is plainly a threat of adverse personnel
action against any officer who fails to meet a traffic
citation quota,” Miller wrote. “This is illegal.”
When shown the letter, e-mail and other correspondence,
Gresham couldn't verify whether they were real.
“We don't have a ticket quota system, it's illegal,”
Gresham said. “The community has spoken loud and clear.
People are concerned about speeding vehicles in their
neighborhoods. I personally hear concerns about traffic
safety issues . . . We are aggressively reducing
collisions to make the community safer.”
When evaluating an officer's performance, the Fairfield
Police Department takes into account the number of
arrests, reports written, assignments, vacation days and
other activity, Gresham said. The number of traffic
citations are one factor in the equation, Gresham said.
Fairfield residents worry about speeders and dangerous
motorists, Gresham said. So police pursue reckless
drivers by writing tickets or conducting DUI checkpoints
and occasionally patrolling schools during peak traffic
times.
But some officers are verifying claims of a ticket
quota.
Sgt. Tony Ford, who was fired by the department on
Monday, countered that Fairfield police supervisors
judge patrol officers by the number of citations they
issue. A Sacramento television station aired a story on
Fairfield's alleged ticket quota and Ford said police
officials accused him of leaking information to the
media before placing him on paid administrative leave
for six months before he was fired.
Fairfield police are doing necessary things such as
targeting people who drive dangerously around schools,
Ford said. But the sergeant said he witnessed officers
going out of their way to write tickets.
Officers have patrolled Westfield Shoppingtown Solano
for infractions such as lacking front license plates, he
said. Ford once had a new patrol officer whose beat was
downtown, part of West Texas Street and Allan Witt Park.
The new officer was told one month he didn't issue
enough tickets. The next month Ford saw that the officer
wrote an excess of tickets that were in Rancho Solano -
far from his beat.
Gresham said he does not know of any officers going
outside their beats for traffic citations.
John White, a retired Fairfield police sergeant, said
Fairfield police have a ticket quota. Before he retired
about four years ago, White said the department
subjected patrol officers to a color code. Officers who
wrote a certain number of tickets were labeled green and
commended, he said. Those who made the average were
yellow and those who didn't meet the amount of tickets
suggested were labeled red and faced with disciplinary
action, White said.
White worked for the force four years ago under a
captain who is also retired, Gresham said. Gresham said
he wasn't aware of a color-coding system. Like any
agency, the Fairfield Police Department has its
disgruntled employees, Gresham said.
Money from traffic citations does not go directly to the
police department, Gresham added.
“We have seven motor officers for a town of about
100,000,” Gresham said. “If that were the case we would
have 70 motor officers instead of seven.”
Depending on the offense, traffic fines go to pay for
administrative costs, other government agencies and
programs and the city's General Fund. For example, about
30 percent of the penalties for red-light violations go
to the city. According to Bob Leland, the city's
director of finance, the city averages $494,000 per year
in traffic fine income and $62,000 from parking
citations.
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