ABILENE, TX – I never saw a police officer do what Officer Kayla Walker of the Richardson Police Department did last month. She stood before the City Council and accused her bosses of violating state law by enforcing a traffic ticket quota.
That is some brave policewoman.
Ticket quotas are illegal in Texas. Walker charged that the department has done this for decades. She told the council she was speaking on behalf of current and former officers. (She later said that’s about 30 people.)
In her words: “The Richardson Police Department has been illegally using quotas to evaluate and discipline officers. Patrol officers are threatened with punishments for not writing enough tickets, arresting enough people and making enough citizen contacts.”
How does it work? The 13-year veteran said: “The command staff does this under the guise of monthly productivity reports to compare officers to one another.”
Under state law, it’s illegal for police command staffs to use quotas to evaluate, promote, compensate or discipline. But Walker says that’s happening in Richardson.
This was first reported in Mark Steger’s Richardson-related blog. However, he did not name the officer.
Walker asked for an investigation to validate her claims.
Much to her surprise, she learned later from The Watchdog (not from anyone from the city) that city leaders have granted her wish.
At a follow-up council meeting, City Manager Dan Johnson said: “I want to assure you [Mayor Paul Voelker], the City Council, the public, Officer Walker and the Richardson Police Department that the concerns raised regarding traffic enforcement practices and alleged violations of the state transportation code are serious matters.
“It compelled my office, in coordination with the city attorney and the police chief, to initiate a thorough review. This review will involve outside legal counsel, and it will be conducted in an orderly and expeditious way.”
He promised to share results with the public and added that he assures everyone this is “getting our full attention.”
The mayor, city manager and police Chief Jimmy Spivey declined to talk to The Watchdog. City spokesman Greg Sowell told me: “We do not respond to interview requests on active investigations. … Time needs to be given for the outside investigators to do their work, and we ask patience and understanding.”
Richardson police spokesman Kevin Perlich declined my request to pass a note to Officer Walker for an interview because, he explained, her allegations were made “outside of the department.”
“She’s obviously not following the chain of command on this,” he said.
‘A greater divide’
A quota-driven police department can promote a greater divide between the community and police, and negatively impacts community relations, says Andrea Headley, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who studies police departments across the nation.
“This is one way to increase revenue … but it benefits a police department at the expense of officers internally as well as the community.”
Scott Henson — who writes the Grits for Breakfast blog, which studies Texas law enforcement policies and procedures — says: “The idea of a quota goes against the notion that police react to crime. Instead, it causes them to manufacture offenses.
“It’s one thing to have a quota for your telemarketer and say, ‘You have to make so many sales today.’ Applying that same type of quota to a police officer creates a situation where instead of interrupting someone at dinnertime, the harm is that you have taken away their liberty or imposed criminal justice debt that then they’ll have hanging over them and may turn into an arrest warrant later.
“So the harms are much greater. There are many situations where you might want to treat government like a business. Criminal justice is not one of them.”
‘Averages and productivity’
That, the Richardson officer told the council, is what she fears is happening in the city that abuts northern Dallas.
In her town, they don’t call them quotas, she said. Words used are “averages” and “productivity.”
“We have staff sheets that are updated biweekly, and on my night shift, every week,” she said. They are updated so that officers who have low activity at the beginning of the month can see the number of citations, arrests and contacts that are needed. They are required to get above the top average before the end of the month.
“Some officers have actually been told specific numbers for arrests and citations to produce every month so they do not get in trouble. This is the definition of an illegal quota. Other supervisors are smarter and use the average number to direct your expected monthly activity output. …
“The bottom lines are averages are still a number.”
She told the council that in early March, “I was advised that if I did not bring my numbers up above the sector average by April, I would ‘suffer.’ When I asked what suffering meant, I was told I would be placed on a corrective action plan. … I would also be required to have meetings with command staff members, and finally this would be detrimental to my evaluation, and I might not recover from it.”
Her punishment, she said, could be a change in her schedule, which, in her case, could limit time spent with her young child.
“I literally face a choice of violating state law or limiting time with my child,” she said. “No parent should ever have to make that choice.”
Other officers, she said, have been threatened with loss of part-time jobs, special assignments and forced resignations.
She concluded: “I strongly believe most of our front-line supervisors are being pressured to participate in this illegal quota system by command staff members above them. We understand the need for citations and arrests in our job. We are not contesting that.
“We are simply protesting the illegal quota practices that strip officers of one of the most important things we have on our jobs — discretion.
“In this day and age when all police are under a microscope, our actions need to be above reproach,” she told the council. “Quotas erode the public’s trust in our department and strip away the integrity of every officer.”
New chief
There is something the city should do immediately. Spivey is retiring at the end of May, concluding a 50-year career in law enforcement.
Johnson, as city manager, is responsible for hiring the new chief. An announcement is expected this month. Johnson should postpone it.
Instead, Johnson should name a temporary chief while awaiting results of the independent probe. If Walker’s claims are validated, the city must hire an outsider as chief to restore integrity.
If Johnson goes ahead and names a chief before the process is completed, he’ll be making a big mistake.
As for Officer Walker, if you believe, as I do, that changes in police departments must occur from within, her coming forward is a significant event that should be emulated in police departments across the nation. That takes courage, something she’s already shown she has.
