Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

[shiny!]

An Auburn, Alabama police officer was fired for refusing to go along with ticket and arrest quotas, then speaking out about it:

Here's a follow-up to the story:

Auburn Cop Fired for Resisting Quotas Gets Online Support; City Officials Deny Deny Deny

Tracy Oppenheimer|Jul. 26, 2013 10:45 am

Wednesday’s ReasonTV video “Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Ticket and Arrest Quotas” is making waves, with over 150,000 YouTube views in 24 hours and a top link on Drudge Report.

The piece features Justin Hanners, a former member of the Auburn, Alabama police department who refused to keep quiet about "contact" quotas that began after the arrival of Chief Tommy Dawson in 2010 (neither Hanners nor Dawson currently work for the police department).

In response to the video, one viewer made a Facebook group in support of Hanners. The group already has 6,000 members. Another viewer set up a fund for donations to help with ongoing legal proceedings. Hanners' email account has been flooded with support and offers to send groceries and job-placement services. Media outlets are swarming him for interviews and he reports he is happy for the aid and attention.

The police department declined my requests to talk during the making of the documentary. And now the city has now made a statement that there is not a quota system in Auburn:

Chief Register, as well as former Chief Dawson, have made it clear that they do not require quotas in the Auburn Police Division. If any Auburn Police officer is unclear on the expectations of the Chief or his supervisor, Chief Register, Public Safety Director Bill James and I all have open door policies and will be happy to hear their concerns and make our expectations clear.

Hanners kept copies all of his correspondence throughout his grievance process, including a response from the Public Safety Director Bill James specifically addressing Hanners' discomfort with the quotas. James said:

To make 100 contacts, which include among others, traffic stops, issuing warrants, field interviews and arrests, requires about two contacts per shift hour. Making two contacts per hour is not unreasonable and still seems to leave a lot of time to perform other duties that are detailed in your job description. Your supervisors as well as I have an expectation that each employee needs to be productive during their time on shift.

James continues:

This production is measured using different matrix’s, including numbers. This is not any different than quantifying miles of streets paved or number of fire hydrants painted.

I asked Hanners to respond to this claim.

"Streets and fire hydrants don’t have Constitutional rights. They don’t pay taxes. They don’t vote. We’re supposed to protect and serve the citizens,” Hanners said, “They’re not to be looked at as inanimate objects that we have to keep rank and file like our streets being neat and our fire hydrants being painted.”

The city's statement also says that Hanners' claim that he was fired for violating a gag order is unsubstantiated. But they "cannot comment in detail on the specific basis for the termination." Hanners walked me through his grievance process and the internal affairs investigation:

"Well, the day my grievance was over, I get called into the Chief’s office, and was told that some evidence I presented was from an internal affairs investigation and the gag order had been placed and I wasn’t supposed to have it. So then the Chief, who is the suspect in my grievance, now starts an internal affairs investigation into me and my partner to see if we somehow compromised his own investigation into his own wrongdoing where he had found he had done nothing wrong. So in this investigation, they found that we had violated a gag order and that I had violated the city’s reporting policy by reporting these people. And they ultimately fired me for it and suspended my partner who gave me a statement that said everything I was saying was true."

Auburn Assistant City Manager James Buston is also saying that Reason did not do our journalistic duty:

“They did not even offer us the opportunity to respond before they put it together. It’s a pretty shoddy news organization, I would say.”

Actually, I have an email response from the police department, with the public safety director copied, declining my interview request.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

An Auburn, Alabama police officer was fired for refusing to go along with ticket and arrest quotas, then speaking out about it:

Here's a follow-up to the story:

What are the odds that this was a set-up? Auburn, Alabama is home to Lew Rockwell and the Von Mises Institute (Right Down the Street from the Auburn University Sign at the beginning of that video on Magnolia Ave). Now Reason, and not any other media outlet, covers the story.

I think the complainers may be right. This sounds like one controversy made up by libertarians for libertarians.

Here's what the local paper has to say:

Auburn city manager rebuts Hanners' claims


Posted: Friday, July 26, 2013 6:28 pm | Updated: 6:30 pm, Fri Jul 26, 2013.
Drew Taylor | Opelika-Auburn News

The city of Auburn has gone on the offensive against claims that the Auburn Police Division forces officers to comply with quotas.


In a news release sent Thursday afternoon, City Manager Charles Duggan denied claims made by former APD officer Justin Hanners that officers are forced to make 100 contacts per month through ticketing and arrests.


“We have investigated the accusations that have been made and have found them to be false,” Duggan stated. “I’m confident, and I hope our citizens remain confident, in the integrity and quality of Auburn police.”


Duggan stated an annual citizen survey by the city shows police visibility and enforcement of traffic laws are important and were a priority for the APD to uphold. Duggan stated any officers who are unclear of these expectations are encouraged to meet with him, Public Safety Director Bill James or APD Chief Paul Register.


“For patrol officers, those expectations do include enforcing traffic laws, which does require making contact with individuals on Auburn streets and sidewalks,” Duggan stated. “Officers make those contacts not in response to quotas, but in response to apparent violations of the law.”


In the release, Duggan states burglaries in Auburn are down 32 percent compared to this time in 2012 and are down 18.6 percent year to date. Duggan cited a recent citizen survey that claimed citywide satisfaction with local police protection was at 89 percent while only 2.6 percent of those polled were dissatisfied with the police.


The original story on Hanners’ allegations was written by Tracy Oppenheimer, a producer for ReasonTV, a subsidiary of Reason Magazine. Oppenheimer said she first started talking with Hanners in March after she had become acquainted with him through Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian group with chapters at high schools and colleges across the country.


“He had been trying to get his story out, and I think he had first approached Young Americans for Liberty and then they sent out an email to a bunch of news sites,” Oppenheimer said.


Oppenheimer said during their correspondence, Hanners claimed the APD forced officers to abide by ticket and arrest quotas, as well as reclassifying crimes, such as assault, as police information.


“That’s how they would reclassify some of the more violent crimes so that they wouldn’t show up in the statistics,” Oppenheimer said.


In the statement, Duggan referred to an internal investigation on the matter conducted by Bob Eddy, who had previously served as an investigator at the Alabama Attorney General’s office and an assistant director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety.


“Mr. Eddy was given free rein to look at police records, interview officers and staff and take as long as needed to do a thorough investigation,” Duggan stated. “Mr. Eddy conducted an almost 700-hour investigation, including exhaustive interviews with Auburn Police personnel and found no corruption or wrongdoing.”


Oppenheimer said she got to know Hanners really well during the interview and thought he was a good guy.


“I talked to him first before going ahead with the story, and he’s a really upstanding citizen with great moral conviction and you can just tell that he is leading with his heart and wants to do right by the city and I thought he had a really compelling case,” Oppenheimer said.

Oppenheimer said she initially contacted the APD for comment on Hanners’ termination, but she received an email from the department claiming that they don’t discuss personnel issues with the media. Oppenheimer said she did not contact the city on the issue. APD Chief Paul Register verified the email, but said it didn’t have anything to do with alleged quotas, but on why Hanners was fired.


“She asked for us to comment on why Mr. Hanners was fired and of course, as always, we don’t comment on internal personnel matters and we can’t,” Register said.


As of Friday afternoon, a video interview Oppenheimer shot with Hanner for ReasonTV has garnered nearly 200,000 views on YouTube and Oppenheimer herself has received numerous calls and emails about Hanners’ situation.


“I’m really optimistic, for Justin’s sake that he’ll have a brighter future and career after this and it makes me really happy,” Oppenheimer said.


Oppenheimer said she has also received messages from police officers across the country that have commended Hanners for bringing the issue to light.


“I think it’s going to put it on more of a national scale, too,” Oppenheimer said. “That’s my hope.”

So there's a young man who's a libertarian cop in Auburn, Alabma. Then a pretty, young libertarian woman meets him at some group called Young Americans for Liberty. This might be no surprise, after all, Auburn is home of the Von Mises Institute.

Then, five months later, the young man happens to get fired. Now, the young woman has a position at a libertarian media outlet in Los Angeles. So she writes a story up in which he is the hero and nobody else is interviewed...

Decent journalism would at least have required her to admit she had been friends with the young man since March.

[DSpencer]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

What are the odds that this was a set-up? Auburn, Alabama is home to Lew Rockwell and the Von Mises Institute (Right Down the Street from the Auburn University Sign at the beginning of that video on Magnolia Ave). Now Reason, and not any other media outlet, covers the story.

I think the complainers may be right. This sounds like one controversy made up by libertarians for libertarians.

Here's what the local paper has to say:


So there's a young man who's a libertarian cop in Auburn, Alabma. Then a pretty, young libertarian woman meets him at some group called Young Americans for Liberty. This might be no surprise, after all, Auburn is home of the Von Mises Institute.

Then, five months later, the young man happens to get fired. Now, the young woman has a position at a libertarian media outlet in Los Angeles. So she writes a story up in which he is the hero and nobody else is interviewed...

Decent journalism would at least have required her to admit she had been friends with the young man since March.

A set up? In what sense? Do you have actual evidence that disputes the facts? You complain that nobody else was interviewed but the article claims the police dept declined an interview. Do you doubt this? Do you have any basis for doubting it? The city denies wrongdoing (shocking) and denies the quotas. But there's a voice recording that pretty clearly lays out what a normal person would call a quota. Is it fake? Is anyone claiming it is? Do you have secret evidence about this recording?

[c1ue]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

I'd like to hear just how reasonable this statement is:

To make 100 contacts, which include among others, traffic stops, issuing warrants, field interviews and arrests, requires about two contacts per shift hour. Making two contacts per hour is not unreasonable and still seems to leave a lot of time to perform other duties that are detailed in your job description. Your supervisors as well as I have an expectation that each employee needs to be productive during their time on shift.

That's what is really at question. Note that 'contact' isn't the same as traffic ticket or arrest, and furthermore that it is unclear from the articles above what the so called quota actually means. For example, is that 2 or more every single hour, or is it averaged over a week or month? The 100 number seems to imply a general measurement criteria over a week.

What is not at question is the positioning and media exposure being put forward by Reason Magazine/Oppenheimer: quotas.

That's not necessarily correct from what I am reading here - everyone has some form of management expectation in the form of a number, but it isn't necessarily a quota. It would also be more illuminating to understand what precisely was the substance of the disagreement. Maybe 99% of all the other officers are exceeding this minimum threshold, but this one wasn't and has failed to do so many times - that would certainly put a very different face on the situation.

Dcarrigg does make a very cogent point about the relationship between the reporter and the former police officer - that does raise the question of just how objective said reporter is being.

[shiny!]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

From the video:

"Officers will have 100 contacts per month, minimum. Of these, 40 may be contacts for traffic. The other 60 will be divided between traffic citations, non-traffic citations, field interviews and custodial arrests. Do not be the one that does not get 100."

"That's 72,000 contacts per year in a 50,000 person town."

If the math is correct, that seems extremely excessive.

[c1ue]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

I don't know - San Francisco is not a particularly law enforcement crazy town, but the article below implies an average of over 35 contacts per 10 hour shift:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...load-Study.pdf

SFPD officers have an average of 3.5 contacts with SMI individuals during a typical shift,

although about 1% of the officers have between 10 and 20 contacts per shift. Officers spend

about one hour per shift with mentally ill persons, although 35% of the officers spend

between 1 and 3 hours, and 4% spend 3 hours or more. Based on a 10‐hour shift, this means

at least 10% of all police field time is spent in this one area.

That's nearly double the 2 contacts per hour noted above. Of course, I don't know if the SF definition of contact matches that of the Auburn police department. I do know that SF policemen by and large don't bother with traffic citations - with the exception of a small group that is tasked specifically with traffic enforcement.

[shiny!]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

I don't know - San Francisco is not a particularly law enforcement crazy town, but the article below implies an average of over 35 contacts per 10 hour shift:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...load-Study.pdf



That's nearly double the 2 contacts per hour noted above. Of course, I don't know if the SF definition of contact matches that of the Auburn police department. I do know that SF policemen by and large don't bother with traffic citations - with the exception of a small group that is tasked specifically with traffic enforcement.

What matters is how many police officers there are per capita, and the nature of the community. A large police force in a small, low-crime community will need to make fewer arrests or contacts than an understaffed police force in a large and/or crime-ridden community.

[c1ue]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

What matters is how many police officers there are per capita, and the nature of the community. A large police force in a small, low-crime community will need to make fewer arrests or contacts than an understaffed police force in a large and/or crime-ridden community.

I quite agree - and that information is curiously lacking as well. Maybe Auburn has fewer police officers per capita than comparable towns, and thus they need to really get around more. Maybe the opposite is true.

Be that as it may, my point was simply that there is data that shows 2 contacts per hour is not excessive.

[shiny!]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

I quite agree - and that information is curiously lacking as well. Maybe Auburn has fewer police officers per capita than comparable towns, and thus they need to really get around more. Maybe the opposite is true.

Be that as it may, my point was simply that there is data that shows 2 contacts per hour is not excessive.

By my math (which no one should trust!) Auburn must have 60 cops in a town of 50,000.

72,000 annual contacts divided by 12 = 6,000 contacts per month. Divide by 100 contacts per cop, and you get 60 cops.

Given that I and most of the people I know can easily go our entire lives without any police contact, I don't see see the math of how Auburn's Chief of Police could mandate 72,000 police contacts per year in a town of only 50,000 people. Officers would have to start fabricating violations in order to meet their quotas, and that's what the complaining officer was complaining about.

[lektrode]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

would say its just the ole 'nail em on the letter of the law, for every violation no matter how small' treatment

read: over zealous enforcement = revenue 'enhancement'
seems to be now in effect almost everywhere, these daze...

makes me all the more want a 'car optional' lifestyle = 1 less way they can keep us under thumb
tween that and being about ready to never want to get on another plane again (nor get groped/irradiated and toothpaste confiscated)
makes living in a place that has good public transport a not-so-obvious but quite valuable fringe benefit

[c1ue]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

Given that I and most of the people I know can easily go our entire lives without any police contact, I don't see see the math of how Auburn's Chief of Police could mandate 72,000 police contacts per year in a town of only 50,000 people. Officers would have to start fabricating violations in order to meet their quotas, and that's what the complaining officer was complaining about.

I'm sure that's true, but the police officers are there for the not inconsiderable number of people who do commit crimes.

If Auburn has 60 police officers for 50,000 people, this is actually a much lower number than SF has proportionately.

SF has around 1700 police officers for a town of around 800K -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...131477402.html

The SFPD says the number of police officers has dropped 8% to 1,762 from 1,916 in 2009, excluding officers on disability, administrative duty or assigned to the San Francisco International Airport.

SF thus has 1 officer per 461 residents while Auburn has (if your estimate is correct) 1 officer per 833 residents.

According to this web site, Auburn experiences a significant number of crimes:

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/al/auburn/crime/

Auburn Annual Crimes

152	2,143	2,295

2.79	39.27	42.06

San Francisco in comparison:

San Francisco Annual Crimes

5,465	33,779	39,244

6.72	41.56	48.28

So SF experiences a lot more violent crimes, but the property and overall crime rates between the 2 cities is not so different. Given that there are a lot fewer Auburn policemen, I can't say that the evidence is very convincing that they should be hanging out in donut shops as opposed to pounding the pavement.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

A set up? In what sense? Do you have actual evidence that disputes the facts? You complain that nobody else was interviewed but the article claims the police dept declined an interview. Do you doubt this? Do you have any basis for doubting it? The city denies wrongdoing (shocking) and denies the quotas. But there's a voice recording that pretty clearly lays out what a normal person would call a quota. Is it fake? Is anyone claiming it is? Do you have secret evidence about this recording?

Hey, I'm not saying that "Quotas" are not a dumb idea. Nor am I saying that perhaps Auburn doesn't have too many police. I haven't looked into it. All I'm saying is that a pre-existing relationship between the reporter and the subject of the reports seems to have existed. Proper journalism requires disclosing this. She didn't.

This is a situation where it is obvious that there are two sides of a story. And both sides cannot be telling the truth. I don't know what actually happened. But the fact that this pre-existing relationship existed doesn't lend credibility to the complainant in this case, to my mind.

Were I on the jury, the jury would still be out. But I would feel a lot better about the defendant were the news report to disclose these sorts of relationships.

I only looked deeper in the first place because it was Auburn Alabama. Any other town, and I would have read the article and moved on. But Auburn, AL is to libertarians what Burlington, VT is to social democrats. It's ground zero. And one must apply extra scrutiny to these places when their political movement of choice starts ringing the alarm bells. Or at least I think one should.

[flintlock]

Re: Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Arrest Quotas

Quotas are for lazy supervisors who cant push themselves away from the computer for a minute and actually check on what their officers are up to. All this falls into the same sad tale of how we try to run things today in a top down management style with little or no input from those who really know what is going on. "Management" consists of lazy slobs scanning spreadsheets in between facebook posts and lunch. Simple ideas from simple minds