Coffee City Police - East Texas

[srothstein]

Steve I Don’t know if you watched the videos or not. Those officers not only do not work in Coffee City they do not live there they live mostly in Houston. They are carried as full time officers so they can work side jobs in Houston. In fact the majority of them are in a “warrant division.” What they do is call people with citations and FTA’s and collect the money on the phone. Each time they collect they keep $150.00 per citation. It is not a reserve program at all.

Thanks. I did not watch the videos, just the comments here and saw a few headlines. I just know there are a lot of unusual situations in law enforcement that people will not understand if they do not work that field.

[carlson1]

Steve I Don’t know if you watched the videos or not. Those officers not only do not work in Coffee City they do not live there they live mostly in Houston. They are carried as full time officers so they can work side jobs in Houston. In fact the majority of them are in a “warrant division.” What they do is call people with citations and FTA’s and collect the money on the phone. Each time they collect they keep $150.00 per citation. It is not a reserve program at all.

Thanks. I did not watch the videos, just the comments here and saw a few headlines. I just know there are a lot of unusual situations in law enforcement that people will not understand if they do not work that field.

Yes sir you are correct. If he had 50 reserves would be a lot, but not illegal. However having 50 full time police being nothing other than telemarketers collecting tickets and FTA I don’t know so much. In fact the Chief even says in one of the videos he doesn’t know if it is legal. What is really sad the Chief has an active DWI and FTA in Florida.

By the way one of the reason that he has carried them as full time is so they could work side job’s mostly in Houston. It is my understanding the Chief is running or was running for Constable spot in Houston.

[Excaliber]

The mayor pleads ignorance, but he and the city council approve the budget for the agency. The salaries and benefits for all those officers and the costs of their vehicles, equipment, and other support has to be eye popping. The required funds may have come largely from the revenue from the 5100 annual citations written. That could be around $1.75 million.

I think there's much more here than meets the eye, and the issues likely permeate the city's leadership beyond the police department. "Aw shucks, I didn't know" is unlikely to cut it with TCOLE.

What you and many seem to be missing on this is that 50 officers is not really quite as many as you think and is no where near as expensive as you think. It is probably only two paid officers and 48 unpaid part-time officers (what we used to call reserves). In a very small town, it is the only way to get a police officer on duty all the time. The part-timers, if it is like the town I work in, each donate two eight hour shifts per month. Figure there are twenty-one shifts per week to cover, that makes about 90 per month. Forty-eight officers covering two each means 96 shifts covered, which allows for a few being sick or on training days each month.

And it is also quite possible that many of the officers never worked at all. It is common in small towns for the chief to be retired from a larger department. Quite often he will carry the commission for his friends without making them ever work as a reservist. They have to show up for training and weapons qualifications to keep their licenses active, but that is it. This practice predates LEOSA and was started as a way for the retirees to keep carrying. It is not nearly as necessary as it was, but some old traditions don't die easily.

These reserves and just carrying the commissions would make the mayor's ignorance quite believable.

Point well taken. I hadn't considered that they might almost all be "reserves."

[carlson1]

Point well taken. I hadn't considered that they might almost all be "reserves."

The problem here is they were not carried as reserves, but rather full time officers. Reserves can’t work side jobs and that is why the Chief carried them all as full time.

[oohrah]

I thought the state did not allow small towns to keep their traffic citation revenue after a certain level?

[Mel]

I thought the state did not allow small towns to keep their traffic citation revenue after a certain level?

You said that as if you think that small towns follow the rules like big towns do!

Nobody follows the rules any more.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

OK, so most of the discussion so far in this thread has been about the "speed trap" ID of the town, and the number of police officers.

I didn't watch the above video links, but I did see a video somewhere that discussed the hinky backgrounds of the Coffee City police officers.
They lost their police jobs elsewhere due to a variety of reasons, yet were able to get a fresh gig with CCPD.

The chief said that he believes people deserve a 2nd chance in life, so he hires officers who had problems in other places.
In their new CCPD gigs, they don't have to worry much about serious criminals.

The main occupational hazard would be carpal tunnel syndrome from writing all those tickets. :-)

SIA