[HN Gopher] Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into l...
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Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal 'black
hole'
Author : SQL2219
Score : 65 points
Date : 2022-01-19 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.al.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.al.com)
| wkimeria wrote:
| There was a notorious road in Wilmington VT that was known for
| targeting out of towners in the mid to late 90s. It was a 35 MPH
| road that abruptly changed to 25 MPH. I'm from MA. I was in the
| area camping and I saw the 35 MPH speed limit. Was driving 35
| MPH. Then I saw the 25 MPH and began slowing down at a sensible
| rate and got immediately pulled over by a cop who was literally
| camping out between the 2 signs. I got a ticket for going 29 MPH
| in a 25 MPH zone. The only way you could have gotten down to 25
| MPH was to slam on the brakes.
|
| I could fight the ticket, but that would mean driving back to
| Vermont for the court date (a 3-4 hour drive and whole day away
| from work). I just ended up paying it (it was over $100). Only
| later did I find out that stretch of road was notorious for this
| and the cops preyed on out of towners who had no idea they needed
| to slam on their brakes before the poorly indicated 25 MPH zone
| (locals knew to do this).
|
| The traffic stop served absolutely no purpose other than revenue.
| RoyTyrell wrote:
| This sounds a lot like the typical small town where they try to
| make up for lost tax revenue by aggressive policing. One town
| I'll remember to never go I guess, not that I'd probably ever go
| there anyways.
|
| There was an old Rockford Files episode called Pastoria Prime
| Pick, where a small Calforinia town was growing economically by
| mixing small real and manufacturing/setting-up people with big
| crimes in order to either solicit bribes for lower crimes and
| take in huge fines.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| From my personal experience, Golden Meadow in Louisiana is
| exactly that sort of speed trap. Those cops will absolutely
| pull you over for doing 1 over the speed limit even though the
| limit for the area is unnaturally low for the stretch of
| highway they police.
|
| So is Boutte, but only between the Walmart and Dominoes on
| Highway 90... that'd be the blackest section of the local
| community, which is essentially the color of every person
| you'll ever see pulled over in that area, despite it being a
| busy part of the highway.
| vgeek wrote:
| They have to get the out of towners going to Grand Isle?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yeah. Apparently it's been a thing for a very long time. I
| haven't been down there in forever, but apparently their
| plan is to raise Highway 1 and charge tolls instead.
| bmitc wrote:
| This literally defines gang behavior.
| sesuximo wrote:
| Maybe we can fund a big sign that says "warning: you are entering
| a highly policed area. You are advised to find an alternate
| route!"
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| There needs to be a RICO prosecution.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The TLAs will never allow them to set that precedent.
| AnonMessiah wrote:
| Biggest gang in town.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| > Brookside Police did patrol the 1.5-mile stretch of Interstate
| 22 within their jurisdiction and wrote tickets that brought in
| $82,467 in fines.
|
| So that was the most productive one? After salary, health care
| and operating costs, The roi does not sound all that good.
| ZetaZero wrote:
| That was from 2018. In 2020, the fines were $600,000.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| f0xtrot wrote:
| That's what it comes down to, what is the law (reguardless of
| any ethics/morals). For some reason the leash laws are never
| enforced tho... Seems that could add up to large fines in the
| same way.
|
| Sadly the courts actually ruled the police have no duty to
| uphold the law, they literaly get to choose if and when they
| intervene. including murders, rape, home invasion, etc. and
| won't face repercussion for looking the other way.
| vannevar wrote:
| This is such a clear conflict of interest with the potential for
| corruption that every state should require that municipal fines
| go to a general fund. Under no circumstances should a police
| department be a revenue center.
| dejj wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220119164824/https://www.al.co...
| wkimeria wrote:
| There are a lot of towns like this in America. Towns where the
| sole source of income is traffic tickets, and often that revenue
| stream comes from a disproportionately black and/or poor
| population (this was the case with Ferguson MO. The justice
| report after Michael Brown was murdered pointed to this as one of
| the factors that led to so much contact between the minority
| population and police)
| https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releas...
|
| ---- > Ferguson has allowed its focus on revenue generation to
| fundamentally compromise the role of Ferguson's municipal court.
| The municipal court does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law
| or a check on unlawful police conduct. Instead, the court
| primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the
| payment of fines and fees that advance the City's financial
| interests. This has led to court practices that violate the
| Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal protection
| requirements. The court's practices also impose unnecessary harm,
| overwhelmingly on African-American individuals, and run counter
| to public safety. Most strikingly, the court issues municipal
| arrest warrants not on the basis of public safety needs, but
| rather as a routine response to missed court appearances and
| required fine payments. In 2013 alone, the court issued over
| 9,000 warrants on cases stemming in large part from minor
| violations such as parking infractions, traffic tickets, or
| housing code violations. Jail time would be considered far too
| harsh a penalty for the great majority of these code violations,
| yet Ferguson's municipal court routinely issues warrants for
| people to be arrested and incarcerated for failing to timely pay
| related fines and fees. Under state law, a failure to appear in
| municipal court on a traffic charge involving a moving violation
| also results in a license suspension. Ferguson has made this
| penalty even more onerous by only allowing the suspension to be
| lifted after payment of an owed fine is made in full. Further,
| until recently, Ferguson also added charges, fines, and fees for
| each missed appearance and payment. Many pending cases still
| include such charges that were imposed before the court recently
| eliminated them, making it as difficult as before for people to
| resolve these cases. ---
|
| The full report is with reading.
|
| Also add asset forfeiture to the equation (usually targeted at
| poor and minority populations who cannot find it) and you have a
| toxic cycle of racism that feeds into more traffic stops of
| certain populations which then feeds into stats about that same
| population, rinse and repeat.
|
| But asset forfeiture can cast an even wider death. The murder of
| millionaire Donald Scott by LA county police was motivated by the
| fact that they hoped to seize his ranch through asset forfeiture
| if they found any wrongdoing/illegal activities there (there were
| none) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Donald_Scott
| SigmundA wrote:
| Down here if FL we had a town called Waldo who's police
| department was disbanded for similar behavior, it was notorious
| for a long time:
|
| https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-waldo-speed-trap...
| culopatin wrote:
| I still drive 5 under through there. I still see them hunting.
| I go to the FIRM racetrack often and my car looks like a speed
| trapper's dream. So I'm extra cautious.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| Modern highway brigands. Kind of interesting that exists still in
| the US.
| nus07 wrote:
| The more I read and experience such things along with the
| healthcare scam and sudden bills from hospitals and haggling with
| insurance, the more I wonder why I immigrated to the US when I
| could have taken my software skills and education to anywhere
| else like Europe or Canada. This country is for hustlers and
| grifters and the cunning.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. Look how many businesses in the US have
| modus operandi that boils down to "get rich at the expense of
| other people". E.g. TurboTax. This is toxic.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There's still a significant salary spread between the US and
| most of Canada and Europe (Switzerland is competitive with the
| US, but most of the rest is not). Remote working may close some
| of the gap, but right now there's a wide gap.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| The "salary spread" doesn't make up for the lower quality of
| life, IMO. And I say this as a Canadian who moved to the
| midwest US.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm sorry that you have a lower quality of life in the US;
| are you planning to move back in order to increase/regain
| your quality of life?
| bmitc wrote:
| I just don't understand how people afford Canadian cities.
| Moving to Toronto or Vancouver would be completely
| unaffordable. I would take a massive salary cut but then
| housing would increase significantly alongside that.
|
| Also, is Canadian culture really that different from the
| U.S.? I'm genuinely curious about that.
| klyrs wrote:
| Party membership is not defined by fealty to one
| man/woman in any of the major political parties, so
| there's that.
| nus07 wrote:
| I don't think I care about salary so much especially when I
| hear that the other countries have a better social safety
| net. As a software engineer I am confident I can make decent
| pay for the area. I am not looking to send my kids to private
| school or avail a world class surgeon or have a beach house
| or make millions. I just want a good happy middle class life
| writing code and without a lot of hustling. And somehow the
| US does not seem very conducive to that.
| melony wrote:
| Then move to Canada and see how much you like it. It is
| trivial for an American software engineer with a degree to
| immigrate over. There is a reason why Canadians come here
| rather than remain up north (hint it's not just the
| weather).
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jdmoreira wrote:
| You are not going to make the same money in Europe though
| jcpham2 wrote:
| Welcome to Alabama! Many many towns and cities use the 1.5 mile
| jurisdiction [1] to rake in extra revenue from neighboring
| unincorporated areas.
|
| https://www.annistonstar.com/the_daily_home/state-supreme-co...
|
| Basically for the cost of a city attorney whose job literally
| rests on loose interpretations of state statutes, you can collect
| monies from all sorts of people outside of your official city
| limits.
|
| Think safety codes and enforcement and then make the easy jump to
| Dollar General business licenses which are a percentage of
| turnover.
|
| Policing I22 in Brookside is the tip of the iceberg
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(page generated 2022-01-19 23:02 UTC)