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Sunrise road patrol officers are expected to make at least three traffic stops a day, according to a complaint form on the officer filed in May. That means the city’s 84 road patrol officers have to make at least 45,864 stops a year, about half the city’s population.With Sunrise home to Sawgrass Mills  mall, a top tourist destination in South Florida, folks from all over are at risk of being pulled over and given a ticket. What it could cost you, on average: $200.

“The public thinks it’s a gotcha game and they are going to get you if they have to meet that quota,” said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Law School in Davie. Officers who meet the quota — referred to as “shift standards” by department brass — are in line for promotions, special assignments and raises, say union officials. Those who don’t risk a written reprimand, they say. The Sunrise police union does not condone quotas of any kind, said Roger Krege, union president.The officers making the traffic stops are “just following orders,” Krege said. Officers need to be able to make decisions without “external influences” from supervisors who demand a set number of stops per day. Chief John Brooks, who joined the department in June 2007, denied having a quota.”I don’t have a ticket quota and I don’t have an arrest quota,” Brooks said. “It’s not illegal, but it’s unethical.”

Capt. Robert Voss, who oversees the department’s road patrol officers, says supervisors need some way to measure performance. The number of daily traffic stops an officer makes helps gauge productivity, Voss said. ”Those are guidelines for them to follow,” Voss said. “We have to have a way to measure what an officer is doing out there. The officers are making a lot of money. We want to make sure they’re working.” The standards apply only to the officers assigned to road patrol, Voss said, not to the department’s entire 172-member force.

Mayor Roger Wishner characterized the three-stops-a-day rule as community policing, where officers focus on certain neighborhoods to help reduce traffic accidents. ”I don’t support a quota system, but I do want our officers out there enforcing traffic laws,” Wishner said. Deputy Mayor Sheila Alu also backs Brooks’ rule, in effect since July 2008. ”I think he’s trying to keep the officers accountable,” Alu said. “He wants to make sure the officers are doing their jobs and performing.” From October 2008 through September 2009, Sunrise collected $431,200 in traffic fines and court costs, city records show. Sunrise has collected $352,000 in ticket money from October 2009 through early August.  In addition to the traffic stops, Sunrise officers are required to make three “Field Interrogation Card” reports each month — or 3,024 every year. Officers use the FIC reports to document suspicious activity — and to prove they are working, Sunrise police officials say. One officer has Voss wondering just what he could be doing his entire 11.5-hour shift. Bruce Charlton, a 21-year veteran who works the day shift, has been written up three times this year for failing to meet shift standards. In February, he had one traffic stop and no FI cards. In March, he had no traffic stops and one FI card. In April, he made seven traffic stops and wrote one FIC report. ”I have personally given verbal warnings to Officer Charlton and have placed notes and copies of his stats in his shift file regarding his lack of productivity,” Sgt. Mark Hudson wrote in a May 17 complaint on the officer. “By failing to heed repeated supervisor warnings, Officer Charlton remains in violation of Department Policy and Procedure. Technically, Charlton was written up for disobeying an order. The order: To make more traffic stops and write more FI Cards. Charlton, 41, said this in his defense: “We have over 200 different responsibilities to perform during our shift and it’s not fair to the public’s safety or officers’ safety to pigeonhole our performance solely on traffic stops and FI Cards.

The other officers have to neglect their other duties for fear of discipline if they don’t meet the shift standards.” Traffic quotas may not be illegal in Florida but they are frowned on, said Bob Dekle, a law professor at the UF, ”The problem you get into with quotas, every stop is open to public criticism,” he said. “The accusation is, ‘You did it because you had a quota to make, not because the person was doing something wrong.’ That’s why quotas are a bad idea.”  On the other hand, Dekle said he understands the dilemma for supervisors who want to make sure the rank and file are not sleeping on the job. ”It shouldn’t be too hard for officers to make three traffic stops a day and three field interrogations a month,” Dekle said. “If the officer is not doing that, you have to wonder what he is doing.” Officials with the Broward Sheriff’s Office say the agency does not have quotas. The Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood police departments say the same. Fort Lauderdale does require its officers to meet “performance standards” to measure productivity, Sgt. Frank Sousa said. Officers are evaluated on the quantity of their work, but are not required to “write five tickets a day or make three arrests,” Sousa said. Nor are they required to conduct a set number of traffic stops or “Field Interrogation Cards,” he said. The Sun Sentinel reviewed 287 FI Cards written by Sunrise officers between June 19 and July 19. Subjects were questioned for many reasons — loitering, walking home, driving around “aimlessly,” sitting in a parked car at a shopping center after hours. Will Carrasco, a Plantation resident questioned by Sunrise police in June, was not surprised to hear of the shift standards.”It sounds like a quota to me,” Carrasco said. Carrasco, 27, and his brother-in-law were camped out in his car outside Sawgrass Mills about 3:30 a.m. June 19, hoping to be first in line to buy a new Jordan sneaker. ”Three cops came up and said ‘What are you doing here?’” Carrasco recounted. “We were sitting in the car with snacks and water, minding our own business. I can’t really blame them. But I think sometimes they overdo it. Three of them showed up.”

If you get caught speeding, you should call the Traffic Ticket Team, www.trafficticketteam.com, to fight your Florida Traffic Ticket. If you get a traffic ticket for anything, speeding, red light, DUI or anything else, call us anytime to fight your traffic ticket at 954-967-9888, Law Offices of Jason A. Diamond, P.A. and Diamond, Kistner & Diamond.

Traffic Ticket Team

As elected clerks of court, we are deeply concerned about the amendment to the Senate General Appropriations Act, which proposes another $23 million cut to the clerks’ statewide budget. In Broward and Palm Beach alone, more than 250 employees were laid off last year. These additional cuts mean up to another 130 people may be laid off. The result will be a direct impact on the citizens we serve and our local economy. There are documented, quantifiable costs associated with court-related delays in civil cases, with a direct economic impact approaching $10.1 billion annually in the state of Florida. You may recall that clerks’ budgets across the state were cut by almost $90 million last year, and almost 1,300 people were laid off statewide. More than 30 clerk branch service offices were closed. Those reductions, combined with the ones proposed, will critically impact the ability of Florida’s clerks to provide constitutionally and statutorily required services. However, before we cut services, we adopted technologies to ensure our offices were running as lean as possible. We have been cut to the bone, and with 90,000 foreclosures pending, we’re not getting the job done. The public’s access to the courts will be further restricted as customers wait in line for hours. Businesses will lose thousands of dollars because of case processing backlogs delaying certificates of titles, writs of possession and court docket updates. Civil court lawyers will be the hardest hit by backlogs, as clerks shift from civil departments to criminal to meet statutory requirements such as “speedy trial” — a mandate to give criminal cases top priority. Our legislators need to hear from everyone that cutting the clerks’ budgets for two years in a row will limit access to the courts and directly affect court users. It is unconscionable to impact Florida’s economic recovery by restricting access to the courts in these difficult times. If you are a local Florida Bar member, a member of the business community or just a person who has dealings with the courts, you need to reach out to your state senators and representatives to prevent another direct hit on your economic future and the future of Florida. If you get caught speeding, you should call the Traffic Ticket Team, www.trafficticketteam.com, to fight your Florida Traffic Ticket. If you get a traffic ticket for anything, speeding, red light, DUI or anything else, call us anytime to fight your traffic ticket at 954-967-9888, Law Offices of Jason A. Diamond, P.A. and Diamond, Kistner & Diamond.

Traffic Ticket Team www.TrafficTicketTeam.com

A visit to the driver’s license office has always been a little slice of hell.  Now it’s gotten even worse.  Florida’s strict new identity requirements for license renewal are steering drivers to new heights of confusion, costing them time from work, sending them on laborious paper chases and forcing return trips to the dreaded DMV. ”It’s very frustrating,” said Harmony Hoot, of Lake Worth who, along with her fiancé recently was on her third attempt in a day to renew his license. “I’ll admit I was yelling. There were some profanities.”  The source of Hoot’s woe: A new state law that went into effect Jan. 1 requiring drivers to provide more documentation before renewing a license. Where formerly you needed only to produce your old license to get a new one, you must now cough up more solid identification such as a birth certificate or passport.  Further proof is required in the form of a Social Security card. If the flimsy card has disintegrated in your wallet over the past decades, a W-2 tax form or paycheck bearing the nine magic numbers will do. But that’s not all. The state demands not one, but two proofs of residency bearing your address, which can be a utility bill, mortgage statement or vehicle registration or title. Parents can accompany minor drivers and attest to their residency as long as the parent has the required proof of address.  Married women using their husband’s name will need to produce a marriage certificate. ”I was not told I need a marriage certificate just to renew my license,” said a disheartened Lucy Garcia, of Tamarac, who for a second time was turned away from the license office in Lauderhill. “Who knows how much longer I’m going to be coming here?”  But at least the Lauderhill office had staffers out front to cull from the herd people who lacked sufficient documentation, sparing them a wait in line.  The documentation requirements are part of the REAL ID Act passed by Congress in 2005 in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The hijackers used false identification, including Florida driver’s licenses. A majority of states has refused to comply with the act, and federal authorities have postponed until mid-2011 a deadline for it to take effect. Gary Biller, director of the National Motorists Association, a driver’s advocacy group, said the new requirements are too extreme. However, if you get caught speeding, you should call the Traffic Ticket Team, www.trafficticketteam.com, to fight your Florida Traffic Ticket. Call us anytime to fight your traffic ticket at 954-967-9888, Law Offices of Jason A. Diamond, P.A. and Diamond, Kistner & Diamond.

Traffic Ticket Team www.trafficticketteam.com

A popular phone app could help you avoid a pricey speeding ticket. Sounds like the kind of program police wouldn’t embrace, but that’s not necessarily the case. When Art Acevedo took over as Austin police chief, one of his first orders of business was to eliminate the daily news releases about where APD was running radar. However, the Travis County Sheriff’s office is embracing new technology and the concept that the more information the public has, the safer the roads will be.  It’s not uncommon to see law enforcement officers armed with radar guns aimed at oncoming drivers. Now with a simple check of the app on a 3-G phone or by going on line, Central Texas drivers can know in advance where deputies with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office will be running radar. ”It’s simply a way for us to communicate with the public the areas where they need to slow down and comply with the speed laws. The added benefit is notifying people if there is some change in the road conditions that affects their safe driving,” said Roger Wade, the public information officer for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.  The Trapster App also alerts drivers to flooded roadways or accidents that could delay their trip, but the main focus is on radar detection.  ”The bottom line is we want to make the roads safer for Travis County and this is another tool that will do that,” said Wade. The question seems to be whether it’s better to let the public know where radar is being run or not.  Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo prefers not to give advance notice. ”It kind of defeats the purpose of being out there,” said Acevedo. “We want people to know that we were working it but telling them the specific roadways was a little counterproductive for us.”  Drivers we spoke to were split.  ”Yeah I think it is a good idea and I probably would use it,” said John Egan. ”If you know we are running late for work or if I am in a hurry, we would want to know there is going to be a cop around the corner. I will slow down,” said Sean Munoz. ”Some people are going to have radar detectors anyway and they are going to find out if they want to find out,” said Diane from Austin. “But most people are not going to take the time to look into something.”  Drivers can add data to Trapster, just like the Travis County Sheriff’s office does — but if it’s inaccurate, it can be taken down.  By the way, Roger Wade tells us his office doesn’t make any money off Trapster. The app is free of charge.  However, if you get caught speeding, you should call the Traffic Ticket Team, www.trafficticketteam.com, to fight your Florida Traffic Ticket. Call us anytime to fight your traffic ticket at 954-967-9888, Law Offices of Jason A. Diamond, P.A. and Diamond, Kistner & Diamond.