Posted on 05/19/2008 12:17:51 PM PDT by george76
Among the thousands of drivers who have been issued $40 fines after being nabbed by Montgomery County's new speed cameras are scores of county police officers. The difference is, many of the officers are refusing to pay.
The officers are following the advice of their union, which says the citations are issued not to the driver but to the vehicle's owner -- in this case, the county.
That view has rankled Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and County Council Member Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), who chairs the Public Safety Committee.
"You can't have one set of laws for police officers and another one for the rest of the world,"
In recent weeks, officers have twice been photographed speeding past a camera and extending a middle finger, an act that police supervisors interpreted as a gesture of defiance.
Under the law, owners of vehicles, not drivers, are punished for failure to pay fines. Manger said, however, that officers who continue to ignore citations might be disciplined.
Montgomery is the only county in Maryland that is authorized to use cameras to enforce speed limits, but legislation is moving through the General Assembly this year to allow speed cameras statewide.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Geez, I wish that applied to me. Everytime Hubby drives my car; something happens and because it’s in my name; I get the ding.
Having cake and eating it too Ping.
Not sure who to root for here.
But I certainly understand and agree with the “gesture” on-camera!
Are these police on duty? If a policeman gets a call for a crime in progress, or other emergency, he will exceed the posted speed limit to get to the scene. Certainly we’re not going to ticket a police officer in a case like that are we?
Ya think?
L
fillintheblank for me but NOT for thee!
Of course they’re speeding to a crime scene!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How can I know this? Because cops obviously would never run lights otherwise.
They seem to think so.
Especially in Lee County.
The Lee County Sheriffs Office is as close to a fiefdom as I’ve ever seen.
“You can’t have one set of laws for police officers
and another one for the rest of the world...”
During the last eight months of 2007, the department's cameras recorded 224 instances in which county police vehicles were nabbed traveling more than 10 mph over the speed limit, the department disclosed this week in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post.Of those citations, 76 were dismissed after supervisors determined that officers were responding to calls or had other valid reasons to exceed the speed limit. Nearly two-thirds of the remaining 148 fines have not been paid, including an unspecified number that remain under investigation, said Lt. Paul Starks, a police spokesman.
Leaders of the police union recently filed a grievance arguing that the citations constitute a change in labor conditions that the department must negotiate with the union before implementing.
Yeah, they can't break the law anymore. Imagine that. How about putting them on a probationary status for breaking the law and refusing to accept their fine.
you think lee is bad you should see volusia.....
It’s a beautiful thing when the ruling elite and their thugs have a falling out. May they all suffer no end of frustration and consternation.
There was a time when I would not have called the police thugs. But they have fallen in love with their SWAT tactics, property confiscation, tasers and such, that they have earned the name. Too bad for the one or two good cops still out there.
I know a Fairfax County (Virginia) cop who laughs when he says he exceeds 100 MPH while traveling down a 40 MPH limit road while going to work in the early mornings in his county car (a unmarked Dodge Magnum).
This is the same guy who just took two trips across the state with the same county vehicle to pick up his child from college for the summer and several years ago took another unmarked car on a three day family vacation to North Carolina.
Previous reports of his abuses to the county returned vacuous answers about how all this was OK. He even got promoted.
The owner is the bank for most people...
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