The boundaries of Mountain View are Sheridan Blvd. West to Fenton Street & West 41st Ave. to West 44th Ave.
Posted on 05/22/2006 7:31:25 AM PDT by BulletBobCo
(CBS4) MOUNTAIN VIEW, Colo. Police in the tiny town of Mountain View have permanently stopped issuing traffic tickets to drivers on northbound Sheridan Boulevard after learning they may possibly be invalid due to the town’s city limits.
Sheridan is the eastern boundary of Mountain View, a town of 569 residents in just 12 square blocks, and tucked between Wheat Ridge and Denver.
A CBS4 investigation found that Mountain View's 12-person police force has routinely been issuing speeding tickets and other moving violations to drivers northbound on Sheridan.
However, maps from Denver's clerk and recorder, confirmed by the city of Denver's senior land surveyor, show northbound lanes of Sheridan fall within the city and county of Denver, while southbound lanes are within Mountain View's jurisdiction.
“If we've done something we weren't supposed to, let's make it right,” Mountain View Police Chief Eric Gomez told CBS4.
The chief said he and his officers mistakenly thought they had ticketing authority “curb to curb” on Sheridan but were wrong. Gomez said one police agency is “definitely not” allowed to issue citations within another agency’s boundaries.
“There was no intention on the officers’ part to take the law into their own hands and just start issuing tickets,” Gomez said. “If there's a training issue for them, its a training issue for me.”
Gomez said he too had issued moving violations to drivers in Sheridan's northbound lanes.
Even though Mountain View is small, its police department is aggressive in traffic enforcement. In the last 2 1/2 years, they've issued approximately 7,200 tickets, according to assistant town attorney Hilary Mogue Graham.
In 2006, they've been handing out an average of 475 tickets per month, mostly on Sheridan Boulevard.
“We hit Sheridan hard, very hard,” Gomez said.
Mountain View police have been unable to say just how many tickets they have inadvertently handed out in Denver over the years, but they contend most of their ticketing has been in southbound lanes which are the Mountain View side of Sheridan.
The jurisdictional issue came to light after a Mountain View officer ticketed motorcycle rider Shiloh Frazier, 29, on September 2 for speeding.
Frazier was northbound on Sheridan at 43rd Avenue when he was ticketed and charged the with unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon. A Jefferson County judge eventually dismissed both charges in April because he thought Mountain View police lacked jurisdiction to ticket on the east side of Sheridan.
“Its a scam,” said David Lane, Frazier’s attorney. “Where their cops are stopping people outside Mountain View, knowing that 99 percent are going to write a check and mail it in and that’s all unlawfully gained revenue. This boundary is not difficult to ascertain. All you need is a map.”
Lane said drivers who got, and paid, questionable moving violations from Mountain View police, and received points against their licenses, may not have much individual recourse since their cases have been adjudicated. However, Lane intends to file a class action lawsuit against the department within the next few weeks for what he called fraudulent tickets.
Lane said the basis for the lawsuit will be that the officers had no constitutional right to ticket people outside their jurisdiction.
“They've been misled by a government entity into paying a lot of money and we may be able to recoup some of this money for those people,” Lane said.
Chief Gomez said all the ticket writing has not been an effort to boost revenues for the small town.
“The revenue is not such a big deal or we would write more tickets,” Gomez said.
On Thursday, just days after CBS4 showed Gomez maps and other evidence that the town boundary was the middle of Sheridan Boulevard, the chief wrote a memo to his officers to put a stop to the faulty ticketing.
They have a 12 person police force?
I live west of there and pass through it all the time. I never would have believed they had a police force that big.
From what I've heard, tickets are this town's main source of revenue.
"“There was no intention on the officers’ part to take the law into their own hands and just start issuing tickets,”
Yeah right. Un huh. Sure. I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you if you believe that.
7,200 speeding tickets X $100 = 720,000 into the city coffers. Or 7,200 X $200 = $1,440,000. Lets see if the city really wants to turn down that much money
“The revenue is not such a big deal or we would write more tickets,” Gomez said.
"We don't need no steenkin revenue". Un huh, yeah right. Sure. "I am not a crook."
The boundaries of Mountain View are Sheridan Blvd. West to Fenton Street & West 41st Ave. to West 44th Ave.
Hmmm, let's see...
A. Mountain View, a town of 569 residents in just 12 square blocks...
B. Mountain View's 12-person police force...
C. “The revenue is not such a big deal or we would write more tickets,” Gomez said.
Yep, it all adds up to an honest mistake when you look at it like that.
“The revenue is not such a big deal or we would write more tickets,” Gomez said.
Translation? "Crap!" Now we have to find another spot to write tickets from."
They may find they have another problem with tickets they issued to motorists on the correct side of Sheridan.
Those tickets may be declared invalid of the officer was cruising outside of his/her jurisdiction while timing on-coming cars.
I have always thought that there should be a mandated limit on how much a town or state could take in in speeding fines, with anything over that amount diverted to some charity. I want our police out doing REAL police work. It's not as if crime has all been solved, but the only baddies left are speeders.
susie
Wow...that's a tiny municipality!
Yeah -- and over two percent of their population are cops...
HA! My grand parents lived in that town years ago. It is one big speed trap.
Twelve blocks....twelve cops....one cop per block.
Does this town have any donut shops?
Sounds like another New Rome, Ohio ... and look what happened to them.
No fair! You got your New Rome reference in while I was looking up links. ;-)
You're kidding, right!? And they have 12 cops!?
That's seriously screwed up.
IIRC, in Texas, JP court can contribute up to 30% of the previous years county budget. Anything over that goes to Austin.
That sounds good, but I don't think any of the govts should get over a certain amount. I see no reason to encourage it as a cash cow (same with taking property for instance from drug busts. Fine, take the property, but it must go to something other than a govt budget). I think it keeps them honest.
susie
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