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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsInfamous Speed Trap Town Eliminates Entire Police Department
Infamous Speed Trap Town Eliminates Entire Police Department
The Great Recession may have a silver lining for motorists: budget woes have forced at least two municipalities known as speed traps to disband their police forces, and one has voted to dis-incorporate entirely. Meanwhile, the town of Heath, Ohio, which AllGov described in August 2009 as Americas worst speed trap, voted the following November to take down all of its red-light cameras.
In January 2012, the city council of Maricopa, California (population: 1,154), voted to disband the towns tiny police department, which had only two full-time officers and twenty volunteers, and pay the Kern County Sheriffs Department to police the town. The move was not unexpected, because last year a Kern County grand jury recommended that debt-ridden Maricopa eliminate the department, which it accused of targeting Latino drivers in hopes of seizing vehicles from unlicensed, undocumented immigrants. The grand jury further urged the town to consider dis-incorporating entirely, although the city council has not yet adopted that idea.
In a similar case in California in June 2010, Maywood, a working-class town in Los Angeles County (population: 45,000) outsourced all of its services, including law enforcement after its police department was criticized for aggressively operating checkpoints and impounding hundreds of cars from the local population, many of whom were illegal immigrants.
One speed trap town that has recently pulled the plug on itself is St. George, Missouri, a tiny St. Louis suburb (pop.: 1,337). In addition to being known as a speed trap, St. George earned a reputation for police wrongdoing, as one officer was caught on tape threatening to fabricate charges against a motorist, and one was accused of sexually harassing a 17-year-old girl during a traffic stop several years before being employed by St. George, and later while St. George Police Chief, of sexual contact with a child, although a jury trial ended in a mistrial. St. George disbanded its police force in 2009 and voted to dis-incorporate entirely in November 2011.
http://www.allgov.com/Controversies/ViewNews/Infamous_Speed_Trap_Town_Eliminates_Entire_Police_Department_120129
WingDinger
(3,690 posts)NRaleighLiberal
(60,015 posts)Funny as hell - big signs well in advance warning drivers about them. Interesting to read about them on Wikipedia. Pretty depressing road to travel actually - 301 between Jacksonville and Ocala.
jody
(26,624 posts)onethatcares
(16,169 posts)have billboards with that exact message. And they still write tickets because they are zero tolerance above the posted limits
jody
(26,624 posts)minor felonies and misdemeanors reported.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)If I remember correctly, he posted it on youtube that night. The next day, all the local TV stations were showing excerpts. This young man has a special place in my heart - I lived very near St. George and knew them well.
aka-chmeee
(1,132 posts)Speed limits at 55 and 60 mph through several little burgs sporting fancy patrol cars harvesting the interstate highway.
BumRushDaShow
(129,079 posts)where more and more towns are dissolving their police departments and have started using state resources to have the State Police carry out the policing.
Iggo
(47,558 posts)That place is in the middle of nowhere, though.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Seriously, they are little different than an organized crime ring.
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)Macks Creek, MO. Wikipedia article on it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macks_Creek,_Missouri
The town had a 45 mph zone going down from a 60. The article doesn't say it, but I seem to remember that there was a trick involved with it, so that if you didn't know the zone was there, it came up suddenly so that it was very difficult to get from 60 to 45 in time. The city was getting 85% of its revenue from that speed trap. The state passed a law making it illegal to get more that 45% of a city's revenue from speeding tickets. The city had to declare bankruptcy a couple of years later.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)both of those mendacious burgs are like something out of a cracker speed trap movie.
riohondo168
(1 post)The whole situation in Maricopa, CA. didn't have to happen. The blame rests with Chief Derek Wayne Merritt. Before becoming Police Chief, Derek Merritt was rumored to have been forced to resign from the El Monte, CA. Police Department for unprofessional behavior. In 2003, Derek Merritt was dismissed from Rio Hondo Police Academy for abusing police recruits (Rio Hondo Police Academy Class #168) . Merritt made the police recruits do pushups in 90 degree weather on red hot blacktop, which caused 3rd degree burns on their hands. Oddly, Merritt was allowed to return to the academy a few years later.
The moral of this story is pick the RIGHT people and do a background check.