Nine Arlington Texas Cops Fired For Lying About Stats

Nine Police Officers Were Fired For Lying About Traffic Stops That Didn’t Happen

Arlington, Texas – Nine Arlington Texas cops have been lost their employment and several more are still under investigation for misconduct. The department has accused these officers of lying about the number of traffic stops they’ve conducted in recent months. The department made the announcement late Friday afternoon.

The police department conducted a routine audit of Arlington Texas cops assigned to the Patrol Division and discovered traffic stops that were logged on agency computers which appeared to have never been conducted. At that time, 15 officers were placed on paid administrative leave in May. Three officers resigned from the Department before the investigation was ever conducted and the department indicated that four others are still currently under investigation.

The officers who were let go do have the right to appeal the decision of the agency. This case has gone so far as to accuse the officers of lying about traffic stops, tampering with government records, and conduct unbecoming a police officer, according to a press release from the Arlington Police Department. These cases have also been forwarded to the district attorney’s office and they will determine if criminal charges should be filed. The police chief has made a statement indicating that these allegations are serious and represent conduct that is not consistent with departmental expectations.

The investigation has revealed that the officers reported on their in-car computers that they had made a traffic stop at an address but did not give any names attached to the traffic stop. Officers are required to report the name and demographics of the individual stopped, whether an arrest occurred, and if a search was conducted. All this data is used to compile the Department’s annual racial profiling report.

These violations were initially uncovered when supervisors were conducting a review of in-car video camera surveillance and were unable to locate traffic stops as they were recorded by the in-car computer system.

The reason for the falsified stops was given by the Fort Worth attorney who represents two of the fired officers was that his clients maintain that they were pressured to make stops and write citations because of an alleged traffic ticket quota, which would be illegal for the department.

While official quotas are illegal, this doesn’t prevent departments from using statistical data or “stats” to rate officers on their performance. Statistics often evaluated are arrests, citizen contacts, tickets, traffic stops, civil and criminal citations, etc. Every department looks at “stats” differently. In some departments, “stats” are a small fraction of how an officer is evaluated on their performance. In other departments, “stats” can be a major factor in whether an officer gets a raise or even gets to keep their job. There are even departments which punish officers for low “stats” by making them walk for their shift, assign them miserable jobs, or put their names on lists like a mark of shame.

Some departments that want tickets can get around the quota ban by pushing a certain number of traffic stops, then evaluating the percentage of people ticketed. If a department requires 10 traffic stops per day to be evaluated well, and they require a 50% enforcement average, they are effectively instating a 5 ticket daily quota.

Arlington Police officials have denied that there is any type of quota system in place as that would be illegal under state law. However, if there isn’t a quota system in place, it begs the question: Why else would officers falsify their stop numbers? According to the attorney representing the officers, they will appeal their terminations through an arbitration hearing. All nine of the fired Arlington Texas cops are members of a local municipal patrolmen’s association but the association has not commented on the investigation as of yet.

If these Arlington Texas cops lied, then shame on them. If the department had an unwritten quota or put so much pressure on these officers for “stats” that they felt they had no choice but to lie, then shame on the department. Either way, this has ruined careers and questioned integrity. Hopefully, some logical explanation will come forward in the appeals process and we will be able to bring you an update to this story.

What is your opinion on unwritten quotas or department’s putting pressure on officers to get “stats”? Is it a good way to make officers “justify their existence” or does it drive the wedge further between the community and the police? Tell us your thoughts below or on our Facebook page.
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