DMN Finally Figures out Fake Ticket Scheme

Well, well, well. The last horse finally crosses the finish line and demands a blue ribbon. Those who care to can jump:

Six months ago the print version of FrontBurner broke the story on a cabal of dirty DPD cops who were writing phony tickets, making people sign blank tickets, and making bogus arrests. We explained why the Central Division cops were doing this, and how it was a violation of the civil rights of some of the most vulnerable people out there — street people with almost no access to legal counsel. Close to three weeks after our issue hit the stands, the Morning News ran a follow-up story basically repeating some of our findings, only they couldn’t even figure out why these cops were doing this, nor did they understand the full extent of what was going on.

Why any officer might improperly fill out or issue tickets is unclear.

As Tim pointed out the same day of the Morning News story, we’d already solved that mystery in our story.

So Kattner and his buddies would use the AIS to dig up names of low-level criminals on their beat, then write them tickets for misdemeanors — pedestrian in the roadway, manifesting for the purpose of prostitution, possession of drug paraphernalia. And the cops would put on the tickets “refused to sign” or “signed at large,” the latter being a very rarely used option for police who witness or have recounted to them a misdemeanor but, for whatever reason, can’t stop the perpetrator. Lopez says that Kattner called the scheme “seeding the field.” Tickets would get mailed out, but the alleged criminals rarely got them. They were transients, moving from crack house to crack house, or they had phony addresses in the AIS. So, of course, they failed to appear in court, and — bingo — the ticket would turn into an arrest warrant. Couple the warrant with a few new misdemeanor charges, and it’s a ride to county — and bigger activity numbers for the arresting officers.

Six months after we explained it, Chief David Kunkle affirmed our findings in this past Saturday’s DMN report, which pretends the Morning News broke the story, and the specter of a federal civil rights investigation is finally being recognized.

Chief Kunkle said investigators believe that blank-ticket writing and the other unusual enforcement practices were aimed at the “habitual offenders” so that they always had unpaid tickets, which would lead to arrest warrants being issued for them.

[Slow clap] It’s been said before — it’s one thing for the Morning News not to credit other media for breaking stories. It’s another thing to claim full credit for a story you didn’t even understand for six months.