Ever notice how, later in each month, there are more people getting pulled over on local roads, highways, and the interstate?
Those damn cops and their quotas, right?
“And hey, we sell ‘Get Out of Jail Free Cards’, too,” joked Marshall County Chief Deputy Bill Helms. “Of course, I’m kidding, but I know a lot of people think we do have quotas, but there is no such thing as a law enforcement agency having monthly quotas.
“I know a lot of people think we do, but in all the years that I have been in law enforcement, I can honestly say that it just doesn’t exist. Quotas are absolutely illegal. There’s no way to require a law enforcement officers to meet any kind of quota whatsoever, and that goes for tickets, and it goes for arrests, too,” he said. “There are so many traffic laws in our state, so that means there are a lot of reasons why a driver could get pulled over. Honestly, there are so many traffic laws on the books that every officer for every department could pull people over during their entire shift.”
Instead, Reasonable
Motorists do get pulled over, and some are issued citations if not arrested and incarcerated. It just depends.
And, as Helms explained, there are tolerance levels and discretion involved, too, when it comes to traffic stops.
“Let’s say someone is traveling 36 mph in a 35-mph zone. Is that driver breaking the law? Sure, they are,” Helms said. “But what kind of idiot writes someone a ticket for going 36 mph? It’s all about what’s reasonable and what is not reasonable and writing someone a ticket for going 36 in a 35-mph zone just isn’t reasonable.
“It’s also not reasonable to impose a quota of any kind on an officer,” he said. “Now, if they think we pull people over because of funding issues, well, that means they don’t know how our department is funded. We exist as a service to the county residents, and that means the Marshall County Commission supplies our funding so we can protect the people of the county. It’s tax dollars that allow us to operate, and if someone gets a ticket, that money goes to the state, and we never see any of it.”
The Oath Is Enough
“I, ……………………., do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of West Virginia, and I will honestly and faithfully perform the duties imposed upon me under the provisions of law as a member of the Department of Public Safety to the best of my skill and judgment.”
In other words, protect and serve.
“You can’t incentivize an officer to enforce the law,” Helms explained. “As a law enforcement officer, it is their duty to enforce the law based on actions or suspected actions based on criminal and civil code. That’s how law enforcement works.
“Now, if one of our deputies sees someone traveling way over the posted speed limit, they are going to be pulled over and ticketed because it’s unfair for someone to put the lives of others in danger. As an example, let’s say someone is on U.S. 250 where the speed limit is 55 mph, and they are going 75 mph. At that speed, that driver could kill an entire family, and that’s not right.”
That’s the “protect” part, and here’s the “serve.”
“The reason why we do pull people over is for the public good, not for what you could put into your pocket,” Helms said. “That’s not how it works, and that’s a very good thing.
“When our deputies are out on patrol, they are looking for trouble because trouble is what harms people,” he added. “It’s all about the safety of our county’s residents. Those folks are what we concentrate on every day because that’s what we signed up to do.”
