DPD Chief David Kunkle backs change in ticket-quota law

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Chief backs change in ticket-quota law

Chief says he wants to ease ban to improve officer accountability


09:45 PM CST on Wednesday, January 5, 2005


By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News



Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle said Wednesday that he favors repealing certain aspects of a state law prohibiting traffic ticket quotas to hold his officers more accountable for what they do while on patrol.

But civil rights and police groups believe tinkering with the state law could lead to officers writing some tickets backed up with little or no probable cause just to get better evaluations.

It is illegal for a city or police department to "evaluate, promote, compensate or discipline" an officer "according to the officer's issuance of a predetermined or specified number of any type or combination of traffic citations." The law also prohibits requiring an officer to write a certain number of citations within a specified period.

"I don't think this law was ever intended to be directed to cities like Dallas," Chief Kunkle said. "It was intended to be directed to those cities that drew a significant amount of their city revenue from traffic enforcement."

Chief Kunkle said the city already supports revision of the law, but he wanted to go public with his own support for change. He said he is not in favor of quotas but rather wants the current law clarified for the sake of officer accountability.

"What we want to do is make sure it is lawful for our supervisors [to use] traffic enforcement ... as part of the overall evaluation to gauge performance," he said.

He said people are demanding greater traffic enforcement on Dallas' roadways. Plus, there would be an added benefit to having officers pulling more people over.

"There is also a strong relation between traffic stops affecting crime fighting," the chief said. "Crooks that get from point A to point B to commit a crime almost always do that in a vehicle. Traffic stops allow us to see what is in their car, to check for warrants to determine if the car is stolen. So there are a lot of good things that occur from traffic enforcement rather than just traffic safety."

Dan Carlson, associate director of the Institute for Law Enforcement Administration in Plano, praised Chief Kunkle for exploring all areas of accountability, even something as unpopular as ticket quotas.

"There are a lot of things that citizens expect officers to do," Mr. Carlson said. "We pay a lot of money to have ourselves protected. In every other aspect of our lives, we use accountability, we want to know what people are doing during a certain period of time."

But Michael Linz, vice president for legal affairs with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said that if an officer is evaluated on the number of tickets he writes in a period of time, "then all the discretion will go out the window and tickets will be written in marginal cases, probable cause or not."

Charlie Wilkison, political and legislative director for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said that quotas were a good management tool – until they were abused and eventually banned.

"The reason the law was enacted was because quotas placed undue burden on the officers to try to find speeding motorists and in that search, other areas of public safety were ignored," Mr. Wilkison said. "It became about filling quotas."

He said Chief Kunkle's belief that he can use traffic citations as a measure of accountability without having quotas is not viable.

"I admire the fact that he's not going to use quotas," he said. "But if there's an acceptable floor where you write so many tickets and you're not in trouble, then what is that? ... Maybe he calls that something else, but it's a ticket quota."


Rebecca Lopez of WFAA-TV (Channel 8) contributed to this report.

E-mail jtrahan@dallasnews.com