Arkansas Police Banned From Writing Speeding Tickets For A Year

The town's mayor, Gary Green, places the blame at the feet of Menifee Police Chief John Randall: "When I hired him, I said, 'We can't write tickets 10 miles and under.' But yet, these guys [were] writing tickets 10 miles and under." Green went on to call the police chief "incompetent," but Randall feels that all he's done is his job.

"The only reason I could see he's got harsh words for me is because (sic) I'm enforcing the laws in Menifee," said the police chief. He also says that the audit did not consider that fines from before 2020 appear to have skewed the figures. Judges had made allowance for payment plans, and some of these earlier fines were only paid off in 2020. Randall says that some of the incoming revenue was therefore not applicable to the year under audit.

Menifee City Alderman Derrick Hammond noted that the police chief was authorized to look into outstanding traffic fines but added that the city council "failed to make sure that happened [at the correct time] and now face police sanctions for a year."

THV11 got hold of the entire record of tickets issued by the town's police department between January 1, 2018, and August 24, 2022, finding that zero warnings had been issued during that time, despite Police Chief Randall mandate on starting the job to encourage the use of warnings more often. One officer recorded 771 citations alone, and although this was an extreme and isolated case, the officer in second place wrote 263.

The town has now been banned from writing tickets for a full year, but other police departments can still cite traffic violators caught breaking the law in Menifee. While it's funny to talk about, one can't help but wonder if this will encourage more reckless individuals to take greater chances over the next 12 months.