Memo required
quotas on
traffic tickets

A police initiative had required
offficers to issue a set
amount of driving citations

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By Rod Antone
rantone@starbulletin.com

Waikiki police officers who wanted to earn extra overtime during the Traffic Initiative 2001 program last month were each required to issue "a ratio of four citations per hour" according to an internal police memo.

The memo, written by Honolulu police Major Thomas Nitta, also states "no warnings shall be given during this traffic initiative" which ran from June 15 to June 30, and that "failure to meet this ratio may exclude personnel from future participation."

"In order to make some money you've got to pick on a citizen?" said HPD Detective Alex Garcia after reading the memo. "That's not right, that's absolutely not right."

Garcia, who is also the Oahu chairman of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, said the memo is basically giving officers a "quota" to fulfill, thereby taking away their ability to use their best judgment during a traffic stop.

According to HPD, the traffic initiative program consists of stepped-up enforcement using extra overtime so that officers can target speeding, motor vehicle violations and other miscellaneous traffic offenses.

"This memo takes away that discretion and is unfair to the public," Garcia said.

"Any person who got a ticket in June should contest it as being a part of the quota system," he said.

An HPD spokeswoman said Major Nitta was not available for comment but said that the four citation per hour per officer ratio was a guideline the department had used before while applying for federal traffic grant monies. The spokeswoman said Major Nitta felt the guideline was "reasonable for this project."

In response Garcia said, "I'm all for guidelines to help officers do their job, but this says it's required. Required means this is not a guideline."

HPD officials said that each district handled the traffic initiative differently and that it was up to each commander to decide how to run their program. Capt. John Lum of District 7, which runs from Manoa to Makapuu, said his district had no memo and did not have officers refer to the "citation guidelines."

"We just wanted them to be out there and be visible and do the best they can because it's all different situations," said Lum.

"But four citations per officer per hour is not that much if you think about it. I can send two officers out there to catch people not wearing seatbelts and in no time they'll have 70 citations."

Lum said his officers gave out an estimated 977 citations during the two-week program. Waikiki police said their numbers still are not in.

"I really couldn't give you an accurate number of citations issued yet," said Sgt. Ken Saito. "But there were citations for all types of violations: seat belt, speeding, no no-fault (insurance), expired tax."

Maj. Susan Ballard, who oversees HPD's budget, said Maj. Nitta probably put in the guidelines in response to her demands that there be some way for officers to show "accountability for the overtime."

Ballard said the department spent between $200,000 to $225,000 on overtime for the project, money she said came from a combination of funds set aside earlier, grants, and cash surplus from the money budgeted for the Asian Development Bank conference.

Ballard also said that there was some confusion within the department as to exactly what the project was about because of "misinformation" that was given during a meeting early last month. Ballard would not say what the meeting was about or who was there, but only that certain captains at the meeting "spread misinformation through all the troops and it spread like wildfire."

Ballard also responded to allegations from Garcia, who maintained that the traffic initiative program was started only to use up surplus overtime which would have gone back to the city's general fund had it not been used by the end of the fiscal year, June 30.

Ballard said funds for the traffic initiative program were available since May and continue to be available although district commanders may believe otherwise.

"Yes, any monies that were not expended would have to go back to the general fund," Ballard said. "Was it spent because it would have gone back? No."