http://www.nj.com/…

Police departments in a handful of New Jersey towns are implementing directives that require officers to write a minimum number of tickets every month. To the police chiefs and mayors in those towns, the directives are a good way to measure productivity, and officers who don’t comply can face unsatisfactory performance reviews.

To some officers and the state Policemen’s Benevolent Association, they’re something else: quotas designed to generate revenue for financially strapped municipalities.

“We’re not toll collectors, we’re public safety officers,” said James Ryan, spokesman for the state Policemen’s Benevolent Association. “When the greater good is public safety, that’s where (writing more tickets) makes sense. But (not) if there’s no increase in traffic accidents, no increase in fatalities.”

Ryan said five to 10 officers from departments statewide have raised complaints in recent months.

Mitchell Sklar, executive director of the State Association of Chiefs of Police, said departments can demand officers perform at the same level as peers and one way to monitor performance is the average number of tickets written.

“How could you otherwise look at performance? You can’t subtract traffic or road safety from the duties of a police officer,” Sklar said. “It’s critical to manage day-to-day operations.”

A 2001 state statute makes it illegal for any law enforcement agency to force police officers to make a certain number of arrests or citations. But it is legal to use an average number of summonses written when it is one of several criteria for promotion, demotion or dismissal.

I’m not sure if it was better when we knew they had quotas but they didn’t admit it or not. At least we can confirm it now to those who had a doubt. And just as with the speed cameras show that they care more about money then safety.

On my way to midtown today:

NYPD squad car 4182 double parked while the cops grab something to eat. I ran out of space on the camera so I couldn’t get a good shot of the 5 or so officers standing on the sidewalk in front of the grease truck. How much does one want to bet they’d ticket anyone else who double parked like that?

You can find more agents of the government of NY breaking the law over at JimmyJustice’s YouTube page. He’s annoying but does good work.

http://www.wreg.com/…

Traveling around Memphis, you probably don’t think much about terrorists, but law officers do.

It was front and center stage at a round up Saturday.

Operation Sudden Impact included police, deputies, FBI, drug agents, and even gang units all working together to see how crimes may be linked.

“People committing crimes down in Crittenden County might have some kind of warrant, and we might be looking for them in Shelby County. We in turn feed that information into state police, which can give us a national and international nexus if one exists,” says Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell.

He says terrorists usually have other links and because Memphis is a distribution center, it has to be especially on guard. That includes the waterways.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Memphis was a part of Saturday’s round-up, checking a boat on the river.

“We look at everything, the safety of the tow boat in general. We also check out the crew members, just to make sure there is nobody hiding out on the tow boat, felons, criminals etc.,” says Lt. Timothy Martin of the U.S. Coast Guard in Memphis.

They say sharing information and building relationships is a big step in fighting back against those intent on harm.

The Sheriff’s Department says 332 people were arrested, 142 of whom are were fugitives.

Hundreds of dollars were seized and drugs recovered, and 1,292 traffic violations were handed out.

They are determining if and when they plan another round-up.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/…

“Not all of this initiative is to arrest people,” said Deputy Chief Donna Turner of the Tipton County Sheriff’s Department.Many agencies put an emphasis on traffic stops. A little after 8 p.m. Saturday in Hickory Hill, Sgt. Chris Harris of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office street crimes unit stopped a white SUV that was booming with music. The driver was driving on a suspended license — he received a citation — and there was marijuana residue in the car, but “not enough to weigh out,” Harris said.

Still, every traffic stop holds the potential of netting much more than expected.

“Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma, was stopped because of a busted tail light,” said Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell.

Todd said he expected Bartlett police to hit more than 50 houses Saturday night and this morning in search of fugitives. Those they didn’t find and arrest, he expected they might apprehend within a few days.

“Some of these people will turn themselves in later once they know we know where they live,” Todd said. “Family members will put pressure on them.”

Lt. Timothy Martin, chief of response for the Coast Guard’s Sector Lower Mississippi River unit, said in recent weeks they have been working with local police and fire departments.

“We’re out there to show that just as the land side is covered by police and the sheriff,” Martin said, “we’re on the water, boarding boats, checking bridges, refineries and power plants.”

All crime-related information will be forwarded to the State of Tennessee’s Homeland Security Center in Nashville to see if there are possible ties to terrorism.

This is not something which hasn’t happened before but it is no less unnerving. A Google News search for “operation sudden impact” results in only 7 hits at the time of writing. Only one seems to be about it before it occurred. Notice how it’s all in the name of catching terrorists yet they go after generic criminals, setup traffic check points and issue tickets for minor traffic violations and search for drugs, board and search ships and businesses. Of course InfoWars.net has their take on it all calling it a preparation for martial law. I have a hard time disagreeing. These events are fairly board in scope and implication yet completely under reported. Given the laws passed in last few years allowing for more and more executive control over all aspects of law the belief that they may in fact utilize such power has only gathered strength.

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=753233&category=22101

A CITIZEN who watched a cop illegally park, then walk into a Chinese restaurant to wait for his food, has issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated parking violations.

Eric Bryant says he was sitting in the SanSai Japanese Grill on NW 21st and Hoyt on March 7 when he witnessed Officer Chad Stensgaard pull up and park his patrol car illegally, next to a “No Parking” sign.

Stensgaard walked into the restaurant wearing his police uniform, but did not make any arrests or citations. Instead, he turned his attention to the basketball game on television, according to Bryant. When Bryant asked Stensgaard about his vehicle, Stensgaard allegedly acknowledged being in a no-parking zone but asked Bryant, “If someone broke into your house, would you rather have the police be able to park in front of your house or have to park three blocks away and walk there?”

Bryant returned to his seat, and says shortly afterward he watched a restaurant employee hand the officer a plastic bag before he left. Unfortunately for Officer Stensgaard, Bryant had recently passed the Oregon bar exam, and decided to pursue the matter further.

“If he had acknowledged and corrected his error, we could have avoided this whole thing,” says Bryant. “But instead, he kept watching basketball and told me he wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Now, using ORS 153.058, Bryant-as a private citizen-has initiated violation proceedings against Officer Stensgaard. Bryant alleges Stensgaard was in violation of state statutes on illegal parking, illegal stopping, obeying parking restrictions on state highways, and illegal operation of an emergency vehicle or ambulance-the violations carry fines totaling $540.

Officer Stensgaard has received a Multnomah County summons to appear in traffic court on May 23. Meanwhile Bryant denies he is just stirring up trouble.

“Citizens should be concerned that he used his status as an officer of the law as justification for breaking the law,” he says.

Stensgaard declined comment through the cops’ office of public information.

I don’t know what the laws are in other states but there needs to be more of this.

http://www.ocregister.com/…

It’s 1:45 p.m. on a Wednesday in February and a Toyota Camry is driving west on the 91 Express Lanes, for free, for the 470th time.

The electronic transponder on the dashboard – used to bill tollway users – is inactive. The Camry’s owners, airport traffic officer Rudolph Duplessis and his wife, Loretta, have never had a toll road account, officials say.

They’ve never received a violation notice in the mail, either. Their car is registered as part of a state program which hides their home address on Department of Motor Vehicles records. The agency that operates the tollway does not have legal access to their address.

Their Toyota is one of 996,716 vehicles registered to motorists who are affiliated with 1,800 state and local agencies and who are allowed to shield their addresses under the Confidential Records Program.

Some police officers confess that when they pull over someone with a confidential license plate they’re more likely to let them off with a warning. In most cases, one said, if an officer realizes a motorist has a confidential plate, the car won’t be pulled over at all.

“It’s an unwritten rule that we would extend professional courtesy,” said Ron Smith, a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer who worked patrol for 23 years. “Nine out of 10 times I would.”

California Highway Patrol officer Jennifer Hink put it a little differently. “It’s officer discretion … (But) just because you have confidential plates doesn’t mean you’re going to get out of a citation.”

Many police departments that run red light camera programs systematically dismiss citations issued to confidential plates.

“It’s a courtesy, law enforcement to law enforcement,” San Francisco Police Sgt. Tom Lee said. “We let it go.”

At least they will admit they are above the law. It’s like all the illegal parking the NYPD does without punishment.

No matter what the cameras say, some drivers are refusing to pay dozens of $40 speeding fines. Who? Police officers.In the last eight months of 2007, Montgomery County’s new speed cameras recorded 224 cases in which police vehicles were recorded traveling more than 10 mph over the speed limit, according to department records.

Supervisors dismissed 76 of those citations after determining the officers were responding to calls or had valid reasons to break the speed limit.

But that left 148 who didn’t have that excuse, and about two-thirds of those citations haven’t been paid, said police Lt. Paul Starks.

The police union says officers shouldn’t pay because the citations are issued to the owner of a vehicle, in this case the county, and not to the driver.

Police Chief Thomas Manger doesn’t buy that argument.

“We are not above the law,” Manger said. “It is imperative that the police department hold itself to the same standards that we’re holding the public to.”

Manger said officers who continue to ignore citations might be disciplined.

“[M]ight be disciplined”, ”imperative that the police department hold itself to the same standards that we’re holding the public to.” = will continue to subvert the law as long as they aren’t caught again. How about instead of forcing people to pay for a lousy service you let the market decide? You could at least get rid of sovereign immunity and allow other agencies arrest and try government agents