As the threat of federal charges looms over eight former Fort Worth police officers accused in a traffic ticket scandal, a Tarrant County prosecutor revealed that state charges were dropped this year because evidence shows the city was using an illegal quota system.
….
The quota accusation was first raised in 2010 by an attorney for some of the fired officers when they appealed their terminations.
Lt. Paul Henderson, then [Police Chief Jeff] Halstead’s chief of staff, dismissed that accusation, saying, “The Fort Worth Police Department does not have ticket quotas.”
Henderson was later fired after his arrest on suspicion of DWI.
…
“There was never even an effort, however, to explain the supposed difference between ‘you write four tickets an hour or you don’t work STEP’ and a ‘quota,’ ” the attorneys wrote in their motion. “The illegal activity was, therefore, not only illegal and ongoing, there was a concerted, albeit sophomoric, effort on the part of the police department to disguise the illegal activity and to cover it up.”
…
In El Paso, 18 police officers were indicted in recent years after an investigation into similar reports that officers falsified documents to gain overtime pay through a state Transportation Department grant program.
Houston also had their own overtime scandal, but I’m unclear if it also involved state grant money.
Hattip: Grits for Breakfast.
Here’s another one from over the weekend that also made my jaw drop:
In a shocking action, Judge Morrison C. England Jr. ordered the recusal of every federal judge in the Eastern District of California. (Emphasis added – DB)
What happened? Briefly, Sierra Pacific Industries and some other companies have been fighting the Justice Department for several years. Justice accused the defendants of causing a forest fire, and managed to get 22,500 acres of land transferred to the government, along with $55 million in payments over five years. Sierra Pacific and the other defendants argued that they didn’t start the fire, and that Justice…
“…presented false evidence to the Defendants and the Court; advanced arguments to the Court premised on that false evidence; or, for which material evidence had been withheld, and obtaining court rulings based thereon; prepared key Moonlight Fire investigators for depositions, and allowed them to repeatedly give false testimony about the most important aspects of their investigation; and failed to disclose the facts and circumstances associated with the Moonlight Fire lead investigator’s direct financial interest in the outcome of the investigation arising from an illegal bank account that has since been exposed and terminated.”
Hattip: Overlawyered.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2014 at 3:04 pm and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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