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October 27, 2008
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Fla. police investigating arrest quota claims
By Rafael A. Olmeda
Florida SUn-Sentinel FORT LAUDERDALE — The Fort Lauderdale Police Department is investigating an officer's complaint accusing supervisors of instituting quotas for arrests and tickets, a department spokesman confirmed today. Police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa said the department's internal affairs investigators were looking into the charges. The Miami Herald reported in Monday's editions that a veteran patrolman, Michael Hennessy, complained that supervisors were requiring officers to meet minimum quotas for arrests and citations, using time off, overtime and off-duty work details as rewards and denying those privileges to officers who failed to meet the quotas. Sousa denied the existence of a quota system, referring instead to "performance standards" that used to evaluate officers. The Herald quoted Hennessy as complaining that the quotas were leading to unnecessary arrests for minor infractions, such as drinking alcohol in public. Last month, the Sun Sentinel reported the city's code enforcement inspectors were given "performance standards" that resulted in increases in code violations from 2007 to 2008. City officials said the standards encourage inspectors to act when they see violations. "If you measure it, the work just starts to improve," city spokesman Ted Lawson said in September. "We're not trying to make people write citations, we're trying to make them find violations and bring them into compliance." Copyright 2008 Florida Sun-Sentinel
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