Cops & Tickets
Seems cops want breaks on traffic tickets. Now, honestly, who hasn’t had a ticket fixed. Reminds me of a story (and this is all relayed to me secondhand from a guy who worked there in college). In my hometown, there was this pizza joint. They also delivered. Like most restaurants in the small town the police got their meals free. The restaurant folks liked the police presence so it was beneficial to both. Of course, the unwritten rule was also that if they give the police free meals then the police would tend to look the other way if one of their delivery drivers were speeding. Well, one day a driver got a ticket. A few police came in and were surprised to be charged for their meal. The ticket went away. Go figure.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:59 am
I don’t know anyone who has had a ticket fixed. I know people who didn’t get it in the first place, but one has never gone away.
I wonder where this arrangement ends. Does the liquor store driver get away with a DUI every once in a while if he gives free beer to the cops? How about no raids on the bordello as long as they give a free ride to the local force? Maybe pot dealers get to walk as long as a few joints disappear after the search?
Graft is graft. And that pizza parlor situation was graft.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
This is why it’s unwritten policy at my dept. that we not accept free *anything*. I’m surprised how often stores/restaurants either want to give me discounts or free meals. I tell them I can’t let them do that because then I can’t write the expenses off on my taxes – that seems to work without offending anyone.
I also tell other officers that if anyone drops my name to try to get out of a ticket, then that person definitely gets a ticket.
Either we’re all equal, or we’re not. Personally, I don’t want to live in a place where we’re not. If I break the law, I expect to get a ticket.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I will say it again, if you want to see the system at work just take some time through the week and go sit in traffic court, especially in Blount County. Usually 2 traffic courts take place at the same time and in any court room you will find 200-300 people waiting to pay their traffic tax, the one thing you will not see is the well to do soccer mom that drives the $50,000.00 suburban, or the business man in his suit with the Benz parked outside.
In other words traffic tickets are specifically targeted against those that don’t have anything to give, the lower middle class to the poverty level citizens that can barely make it pay check to pay check.
2 years ago I was driving an old beat up piece of crap to my job due to not wanting to put miles on the new truck driving from Blount County to West Knox every day and looking for my wife a new auto I received a call from a dealer on 411 right past the mall to look at a truck that had come in that he thought the wife would like. I left work and mind you I was doing 14 hour days 6 days a week slammed every minute of the day, but this one day I was hoping to get a deal and a new truck to surprise her with, so I made a call to the boss, got the o.k., and headed to Maryville. I knew it was time for my tag renewal and had the paperwork to get the new sticker in my vehicle, but simply had not had the time to go and get the registration. I test drove the truck and was quoted a price that would make Bill Gates quiver and so I left. I pulled out on 411 in my junker and looked in the rear view to see state patrol with lights flashing, almost as if I had been set up. He told me that my tags were 2 days expired, and I tried to explain that it was a Monday and that I had my paperwork to get my tags that day (although truth be known I probably wouldn’t have had time “that” day) to get them. He wrote me up for registration being out of date by about 14 hours, no seat belt (said that he saw me latch it as I pulling out of the dealership), asked how long I had lived at the Knoxville residence and I told him that we had bought our house at a different address about a month or two before so I got ticketed also for incorrect address on license and concealed permit.
So I take my 4 tickets and go to court to pay the traffic tax(ticket) and I noticed that although my Khakis and button up shirt was work wear, everyone else had shorts, and a tee shirt on. They had to split the court room that day into three room full of traffic court cases due to the large number of people that had been unfortunate enough not to have contributed to the sheriffs campaign.
I was left in a room with 250 dockets and out of that maybe 30 didn’t show. So I sat and watched as fines were handed out one after the next, not only for the ticket, but now just to go to traffic court you must pay a court cost unlike years ago when you would just get your documents up to date and show them to the judge and he would dismiss them. Each individual was fined according to their traffic offense and then charged 100-180 dollars court costs. One by one the judge asked if the person standing before him was ready to pay his/her fine and one after the next each said that they could not afford it at that time and were taken by the bailiff downstairs to set up their payment plan. Out of 200-230 people I was the only individual that paid my fine and court costs in full, and the verdict was:
No Seat Belt – $10.00
License information not up to date- thrown out as I had fixed that issue
Concealed permit – same, up to date at the time of court
registration out of date – $60.00
Court costs- $140 or $160.00 cant remember but roughly 230-250 bucks total traffic tax (fine).
As I left the “justice center” (which I later named the official Oxymoron of 2005) I took notice of the parking lot full of older cars, not to belittle the people that had been trapped by the system, but to state a fact to myself. I then crawled into my own junker and drove off feeling as if I had been held down and raped by men in uniform and their leader wearing a black dress.
I have never been so politically connected as to have a ticket fixed, and in this life time I hope I am never associated close enough with these criminals to be so fortunate. I mentioned this on my blog when it happened and someone responded that all the soccer moms and business men had obviously sent their payment to the center in advance. So I guess out of 600-750 people that all the folks that’s income allows them to purchase a newer model vehicle all got together with a mass mailing so not one single person had to leave the office to go to pay their fine man or woman.
Those that were there to go to court that obviously did not have the means to afford child care had their children with them and were treated as trash by the judge as apparently “public property” such as a court room is no place for a child as the (grown man in a dress mind you) judge belittled all that had infants and young children and told them that if they appeared in his court room again to make arrangements to leave the little ones else where (god forbid we miss a word from the mouth of the dark skirted one).
The one thing that I cant understand is this, why does the public not have the same respect for the court and the system as the judges, cops, and attorneys??? Oh yeah, they aren’t subject to the same laws and systems that the public are and they are rolling in the cash of over paid salaries to perform a public service that somewhere along the way turned into a kind of black dress wearing dictatorship. I say the hell with it though, life goes on, but I would like to see them have to wear the silly white wigs with their black dresses and perhaps some pumps…
September 26th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
This behavior is different how? from that of any other criminal gang?
September 26th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I have never had a ticket fixed. I once worked as a pizza delivery guy, and on Friday and Saturday nights the restaurant hired a couple of off-duty cops for security/bouncers. They told us drivers that if we ever got a ticket, just let them know and they’d take care of it. No thanks, I said, if I get popped I’ll pay the fine.
Everybody said I was nuts, and that I had no good reason to avoid a ticket. My answer: “I refuse to perpetuate the corruption inherent within the system.” I was told I was too righteous for my own good. So be it.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Kit,
I want to make sure you understand that I do think and know that there are good cops out there. I have many friends that are cops that are great people and good cops as well, in that they do not take their jobs home.
I also admit that in my prior post the events occured because I was breaking the “law” and do not blame anyone but myself for that. I just come from a time that when you got pulled over and you are not doing anything that could harm anyone, cops used to give warnings, and they were respected for that amongst the community that depended on them to keep their families safe.
Now it is all a money game and the politico’s push for quotas and so on, to a point that a restraining order costs $100.00 or so, and any honest cop will tell you that if you are in true danger it will do you zero good.
I have heard on many occasions from friends that are cops about being on the beat and pulling over a drunken local political figure and laugh about how drunk they were, or how completey wasted on drugs they were and they let them go.
All cops know that if they rock the boat too hard that their own livelyhoods would be ruined and any chance to advance through the force gone, unless the political game is played to the politicos favor.
I hope you are one of the good ones that at the very least have accepted that this is how the system works.
I always ask my friends that are officers if they caught a family member doing something illegal (non violent or dangerous to themselves or others), would they try and help them as opposed to shoving them through the system? If they would provide help they are good cops in my opinion, also they have to like to fish…hehe
I had to drop this line because I respected very much the last line on your post, hats off as many of us wish there were more like you.
BT
September 27th, 2007 at 1:07 am
I will admit that there is a silver lining to this: if they weren’t getting tickets from SOME cop, they wouldn’t be crying on the website. On the other hand, they wouldn’t be crying if they didn’t think anyone would put pressure on the “dicks.”
September 28th, 2007 at 12:29 am
We all know how the game is played. That doesn’t feed the bulldog. When a cop or anyone else does something they shouldn’t do because it is financially beneficial and furthers their careers or assures their pensions, they have made a conscious decision to violate the law and their oaths. When a non-LEO does this he is simply a criminal, when a LEO does it he is also a criminal but also betrayer.
All the explanations in the world will not make it right or acceptable. If one cannot make an honest living in his present employment he should seek other employment and state loudly and clearly for the record why. But I fear the feelings of being elite and a member of the untouchables is a siren song for all the wrong kind of people. And they end up in law enforcement.