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Posted on 08/30/2014 7:27:19 AM PDT by bamahead
Waldo, Florida — Many have heard the shocking stories about a little Florida town named Waldo — also known as America’s Worst Speed Trap.
Over the years multiple complaints have been filed against the Waldo Police Department in regards to the tactics used by their police force. And with every complaint, city officials turned their heads.
Yesterday, five Waldo Police Officers came forward and told city council that they had been under strict orders to meet a quota for traffic tickets under the command of Waldo Police Chief Mike Szabo and City Manager Kim Worley.
Writing tickets to meet a quota is against the law in Florida.
Officer Brandon Roberts told council members that officers were required to write 12 tickets per 12-hour shift and if they did not they would face disciplinary action. Roberts also provided e-mails as evidence.
Roberts also said that Chief Szabo kept a cooler in his office filled with drugs that had been seized instead of keeping them properly locked away in evidence. “Anyone could have access to the cooler, even the cleaning crew,” said Roberts.
The speed trap set up in Waldo has also been deemed illegal.
Officer Roberts said that officers wrote many tickets, but did so with heavy hearts.
Corruption in Waldo is nothing new. In 2003, former Waldo Police Officer Chris Kirkland wrote a book entitled “Americas Worst Speeding Trap: A Former Officer’s View.” The book was based on his firsthand experiences as a police officer in Waldo.
In the book , Officer Kirkland described how officers were required to meet quotas, set up speed traps, and use coercion to generate money for the town.
Former Police Chief A.W. Smith was in charge at the time. Smith called the book “a work of extreme imagination.” The American Automobile Association (AAA) has been very open with its criticism toward Waldo city officials and its police department.
According to AAA, Waldo City Officials have ignored corruption in their town for nearly two decades. Former Officer Kirkland, along with AAA, agree that the motivation for corruption in Waldo has always been money. Waldo police have also been accused of illegally coercing people into police searches of their vehicles, often times pulling motorist from their vehicles and cuffing them while their vehicles were searched.
Many motorist have complained that Waldo police used the “I smell marijuana” tactic to search their vehicle. Ocklawaha, Florida resident Carla Haskell, e-mailed Ocala Post with the following:
In September of 2013, I was working in Charlotte, NC with my sister and best friend. We would come home on most weekends and then head back to Charlotte for the work week. We were headed back mid morning on a Sunday and drove through Waldo. While passing through, I pulled into the Kangaroo to grab drinks and when we went to exit the vehicle there was a Waldo cop behind me exiting his vehicle with his hand on his gun.
He walked over to my vehicle while yelling at us to stay inside. He then proceeded to reach his hand into my truck and open all my windows using the electric window panel on the door. He then demanded ID from everyone in the vehicle. I thought it was a normal traffic stop.
The officer said I was speeding, but I wasn’t going anywhere near as fast as he claimed I was. A second cop showed up and we were asked to exit the vehicle. The first cop asked if he could search my vehicle and I said, “No, I do not consent to any searches.” The officer replied, “Yeah, well I just wanted to see what you would say because I am going to search it anyway… I smell marijuana.”
He didn’t smell anything as no one smokes or had smoked marijuana; he just needed something for probable cause. We were asked to stand in the rear of my vehicle while he ripped my truck apart. We were asked where we were going, what we did for work, why we commuted to another state, and how much money we made. The second cop even asked where I purchased my sandals from.
The first cop claimed to find a “green leafy substance” on my floor board and then in my purse, at which point I stated he had absolutely found nothing that could have been illegal in my possession. He stated the odor was coming from the rear of the vehicle, yet his focus was on the front of the vehicle, our purses, and glove compartment. He opened the rear where we had luggage, bags etc. He then unzipped one compartment on a duffle bag and shut the hatch.
He walked back around and said if you have illegal drugs you need to tell me now before I find them and take “your ass” to jail. I still stated I had ZERO illegal substances in my possession or in my vehicle and he wasn’t going to find anything. He continued the search on the floor boards for an additional 15 minutes. Then he came around the vehicle and told me I had one more chance to confess. Told him I have nothing to confess to, I did nothing wrong. He said he found a substance, but wasn’t going to test it because he didn’t want to take me to jail. I immediately consented to him testing it. In fact, I told him to test it, at which point he said, “I just told you I am not testing it.” He proceeded to write me a $300 speeding ticket and told me to get my truck cleaned. Left the contents of our purses and my truck compartments all over the seats and the floor.
My sister went into the store and bought the drinks we had stopped for, at which time the store clerk said, “Let me guess, he smelled marijuana. He does that all the time as probable cause to do his illegal searches.”
We were humiliated in a store parking lot… made to look like criminals in public. And delayed our eight our trip by an hour and a half.
The American Automobile Association said that small towns always think corruption will be overlooked, but they eventually get caught.
According to their records, AAA said more than half of Waldo’s $1 million budget comes from revenue produced by traffic tickets.
Chief Szabo did not attend the meeting. He has been suspended with pay.
The investigation is now in the hands of FDLE.
Watch out for Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
Police officers don’t have to write tickets any longer - the city just needs to mount a few red-light cameras in town and watch the money come rolling in!
30 MPH driving through town and a couple of adjustments on 301. Used the road often for 20 years, even with NY plates, and I was never stopped. The flea market was my rest stop, a quick walk around, pick up some farm fresh vegetables and then get back on the road. I don’t remember seeing anyone ever being pulled over. Obey the road signs,and everything is fine. Then try to go over the bridge by the Beach on Anna Marie Island that has a 5mph speed limit where if you are doing 7-8 mph, the sheriff car is waiting for you.
Drove through Ft Sumner last year and it was really dead. hardly saw anybody.
Also, really watch out for Hope.
Wow. It’s almost impossible to do 5 mph in a vehicle. You would almost have to be idling the whole way. That’s an incredibly stupid speed limit. Unless you are trying to write speeding tickets....
Years ago I was pulled over by an officer in a small town and he asked to search my car. I only consented because I was young and stupid and felt intimidated by him. I never did drugs or drank. In fact I was in business attire. Well I had done laundry a few days before and had spilt some of the white powdered laundry detergent in the floorboard behind my seat. He picks it up and says I’m going to have to test this to see if it’s cocaine. If you smelled the stuffed it was very obvious what it was. I said fine do it but he never did. He let me go probably realizing what an idiot he’d been. Funny thing is I was working with a former retired DPS trooper in that area and he called him and told him who I was. Never had trouble around there after that and even got to razz the officer about it later when I worked on iinvestigations in that area. Those small town cops can pretty much get away with whatever they want uf no one holds them accountable.
Is there a good speed trap app?
Waldo has had the speedtrap reputation for over 40 years that I’ve driven the road from Jacksonville to Gainesville. My wife and I would drive slowly through town and note the usual hiding spots of the cops and commiserate with the poor souls who got caught. From time to time there were articles and exposes of the corruption in the town but nothing has changed in almost half a century. (We were never stopped.)
Suspended with pay? Typical.
He should be in prison!
There are few places where I pay more attention to the speed limit signs than the Waldo corridor on 301.
It and its many traffic lights are reasons enough to skip it altogether and take I95 and I4 instead, depending on when I'd have to go through Orlando.
Treat Waldo as the racketeering influenced corrupt organization that it is. Disincorporate it as a town, close down its police department, throw the corrupt police hierarchy in jail, and seize assets to refund all the illegal tickets!
Waldo has a reputation which precedes it. It’s known for just two things. The flea market and the speed traps. I’ve know about its reputation for the speed traps long before I moved here from Arizona 3 years ago. My wife used to warn me about driving through Waldo when we would come to Florida to visit her family, where we live now, 10 miles south of Waldo.
I don’t read the local news much and this is the first I’ve heard about this corruption charge with the police chief in Waldo. No hard to believe, that’s for sure.
The whole game is tied to cash generation for the city. They need to generate X amount of cash per quarter, and your career (ever how long or brief)....is attached to that fact. If you forced each town to admit in public how much they make per month...folks would start asking questions. I think public video-taping is probably changing the game....but we need each state to tap cities and force them end the game.
Selma, TX used to be like that. The PD station was on a curve on IH 35 and the cops had a radar gun they used inside the second floor and would radio to the PD on the road.
Everyone in central Texas would drive under the posted speed there, but out of town people would ignore the limits and get tickets on a daily basis.
Used to set the cruise control at 28 and wave at the cops as I passed through. That was 2002. Drove through there twice a week for about 6 months...
Hiding spots are a good dumping ground for roofing nails, sharp metal objects, etc....it really works.
“Treat Waldo as the racketeering influenced corrupt organization that it is. Disincorporate it as a town, close down its police department, throw the corrupt police hierarchy in jail, and seize assets to refund all the illegal tickets!”
You read my mind!! But you need to RICO the town officials too. They are the “drivers” behind the criminal activity. The mayor, city council and the city manager need to be in jail.
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