LA Officers Sue Over Alleged Ticket Quotas
August 4, 2011 by UPI - United Press International, Inc.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 (UPI) — Ten Los Angeles police officers say they were penalized for refusing to meet quotas for writing traffic tickets.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Superior Court, the officers said punishments included being denied overtime and given bad performance reviews, the Los Angeles Times reported. All the plaintiffs are from the West Traffic Division.
California bans police departments from imposing quotas on the grounds that officers will be given an incentive to write bad tickets to meet their targets. In April, two motorcycle officers in the West Traffic Division won a $2 million jury award over ticket quotas.
One of the lawyers involved in the new suit was involved in the earlier one.
A lawyer for the city argued in court that supervisors in West Traffic were simply encouraging officers to be more productive and not setting specific targets. The plaintiffs said they were ordered to write at least 18 tickets a day and that their performance reviews clearly depended on the number they produced.
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