11/8/2005
Pennsylvania State Trooper Sues Top Cop Over Ticket QuotaPennsylvania State Police Trooper sues police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller over ticket quotas.
Pennsylvania State Trooper Reginald Wells has filed a federal lawsuit against state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller, Captain David K. Points, and former commissioner Paul J. Evanko. Wells alleges that he was given bad performance reviews and had overtime withheld, "due solely to his unwillingness to either meet or exceed his station's average for the issuance of traffic citations."
In May 2005, Wells was put on a five-day suspension without pay for faxing documentation about the quotas to the press in April 2002. Wells' suit claims this action violated whistleblower protections offered in federal law.
TheNewspaper spoke with several troopers in August who confirmed with documentation that supervisors disciplined troopers who did not meet the "station average" number of citations in violation of a Pennsylvania statute against "directly or indirectly" suggesting that an individual police officer should issue "a certain number of traffic citations."