Posted on 12/15/2007 1:23:47 PM PST by Snickering Hound
DALLAS — Two Dallas police officers frequently made homeless people and prostitutes sign blank citations so they could later fill out the tickets with whatever offenses they chose, according to a Dallas Police Department investigation.
Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle disavowed the practice and said investigators concluded the two officers used the blank tickets as a law-enforcement tool against habitual offenders. If those offenders always had unpaid tickets, then officers could obtain arrest warrants and take people into custody at any time, Kunkle said.
"It's hard for me to understand any circumstances where that would be appropriate," Kunkle said. "It certainly violates fundamental fairness if people don't have the opportunity to know what they're being charged with or get proper notification."
The two accused officers are Senior Cpl. Timothy Stecker and Senior Cpl. Jeffrey Nelson. Stecker had previously been cleared of charges related to his ticket-writing but was placed on restricted duty on Friday. Nelson is already on restricted duty for a pattern of misconduct related to ticket-writing, police said.
They are likely to face disciplinary action; a hearing on their cases is scheduled for Tuesday.
An attorney for the two men said they are good officers who have been treated unfairly by the department's investigators.
"The way this investigation has been conducted, the length of time that it has taken the department, and just the way that this investigation was initiated and continues to be modified continually by the department has been very unfair to the officers," attorney Haakon Donnelly said.
A formerly homeless man interviewed by investigators said he was a frequent target of the two officers.
"They said it was 'speed writing.' That's just where you sign the ticket and they'll fill it out later," R.B. Barton said.
I know a lot of cops just make it up as they go along and most of them don’t know the law anyway.
If this is proven, the officers should be fired.
Totally believable. Quotas?
“If this is proven, the officers should be fired.”
Getting fired is what happens when you are late to work or drop too many plates.
These guys need to have a felony on their record, and spend some prison time.
I agree. I wonder if the good cops that work with these guys are standing up for them?
“These guys need to have a felony on their record, and spend some prison time.”
Technically you are correct. However, knowing that police work is very difficult and stressful, I tend to cut police officers a lot of slack. That goes for Compean & Ramos, and also for these possibly well-intentioned but unacceptably corrupt officers. In my opinion, firing them is enough.
“I wonder if the good cops that work with these guys are standing up for them?”
I bet not, this is the kind of thing that cops might joke about when they are drinking and making shocking, male, work humor, but I bet they are stunned to find out that a couple of them could be this inherently corrupt as to think of it as something that could or should be done to the citizenry.
What happened to the good old days when the police would pick up the bums, drive them outside the city limits, and drop them off?
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