Normal(city)police have filed a lawsuit against their own police department.

[smokingman]

Cops Stand Up to Department Corruption, Tired of Being Forced to Make Arrests & Write Tickets | The Free Thought Project
Normal, IL — A group of police officers filed a lawsuit against the town of Normal last week alleging that the police department is forcing them to write a certain number of tickets or face disciplinary action.
Patrol officers Brian Larimore, Deborak Weir, and Todd VanHovein, were tired of being forced to collect a minimum amount of revenue each month or face disciplinary consequences. They claim the department is abusing its power and have filed a 27-page lawsuit detailing these allegations.
The lawsuit states that each officer had to write at least one traffic ticket each day. They also had to write four ordinance violation tickets per month, and make one DUI arrest every other month.
More than just traffic citations, the lawsuit details the requirements to make at least two criminal arrests per month.

Deborah Weir said she was even suspended for day without pay for falling short of her alleged quota.


The group of officers are claiming that these requirements encourage them to make arrests without probable cause. By refusing to make the arrest and therefore being disciplined, the lawsuit claims Normal Police Department is in violation of Section 20 of the Illinois Whistleblower Act.

 

[VUPDblue]

Good for them.

 

[Vigilant]

Wait...what? JBTs doing the right thing? Can't make it purple?

 

[chef larry]

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

[One Shot One Kill]

Good for them.

Hopefully they will suceed and others will follow their lead. From what I hear, there are more departments out there that are run similarly.

 

[femurphy77]

It's Illinois mind you, it all depends how far from the corruption capital of the world, aka chicagoland, they are as to whether this goes anywhere. I'm betting that regardless of the outcome of the suit they won't be cops in "Normal" in short order.

 

[SEIndSAM]

I used to have a customer in Bloomington/Normal. This explains the very heavy handed traffic enforcement I have seen there...

 

[cheese]

Glad they are standing up for what they think is right. There are to many cowards that just keep their heads down

 

[Dosproduction]

Yeah so I heard IL passed a law forbidding ticket quotas. So I asked a cop about it and he said now it is called "encouraged amount of tickets". Even if they win it will be hard to keep this from coming back. Now a days local governments expect there police to be there revenue collectors through tickets. Good For them though

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

If they weren't being forced to write tickets and make arrests would they still do so if the opportunity presented itself or would they just sit on their butts and ignore everything?

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Normal...as they call it is not a big town. 13.7 sq. miles. Population around 56,000. This is micro management at its worse.

The citizens of Normal should be just as upset as the police. Highly doubt these officers went through all the trouble and effort to become cops to let reckless drivers and meth dealers go on their merry way.

 

[OakRiver]

Corruption in IL?

 

[mrjarrell]

And, at the opposite end of the spectrum, a good police chief gets fired for pointing out his cops are like the mafia and the department is rife with corruption. While I'm glad to see the officers in Normal doing the right thing, it's not the norm in every department.

It’s “An Extortion Racket:” Police Chief Moved to Tears After Exposing Corruption in His Department | The Free Thought Project