Officer Falsifies Tickets to Get Overtime Pay
Federal Program Lets Officers to Make Extra Money
An unidentified San Antonio Police officer has cost other officers the ability to make overtime money through a federal program. The SAPD officer was part of the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program. The program is administered by the Texas Department of Transportation. Federal funds are used to pay the officer overtime for giving tickets but they are required to average 2.5 tickets an hour.
Officer Tries to Cheat the Program
Apparently an officer with the San Antonio Police Department decided that was too much work but was not willing to give up the pay. Instead the officer chose to change dates and times on the tickets he gave to give the appearance that he was meeting the requirements. The San Antonio Police Department conducted a routine audit which is when they found the discrepancies. They immediately reported the problem to TxDoT
Officer Ruins Program for Everyone
Once the Texas Department of Transportation was notified, they stopped payments from the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program to the San Antonio Police Department. Hundreds of officers are no longer able to use this program to make extra money. However, the stop is temporary. Once TxDoT is satisfied that there isn’t across the board cheating, they will reinstate the program.
Dishonorable Cop
I suspect that the officer who falsified the tickets will get a slap on the wrist but think of the character of this person. He changed those tickets to get money. That sounds like fraud to me, which is a crime. A person, who doesn’t wear a uniform, would probably be arrested if he did something similar. But more than likely the officer will be able to continue giving people tickets, continue arresting people and writing reports. How can we trust anything this man does? How can he be allowed to put people in jail based on what he writes in his reports when we have proof that he is willing to falsify information? KSAT is correct when they titled their series, Broken Blue.
You can read the Texas Monitor article here and the KENS article here.