You likely know that police officers stick together. They protect one another, sometimes even when they shouldn’t.
In extreme cases, they’ll lie to help their fellow officers. Or they’ll keep quiet in the face of wrongdoing.
There’s even a name for this. It’s called “the blue wall of silence.”
In the Richardson Police Department that wall has come crashing down because two veteran officers filed a federal court lawsuit charging that they’ve been drummed out of the force.
They spilled the news that the department has historically promoted illegal ticket quotas.
But now the two officers, Kayla Walker and David Conklin, have gone beyond their ticket quota claim in legal papers filed last week in their lawsuit against the city. Their suit alleges that their police department promotes arrest quotas through a process that helps to determine the success of their job reviews.
This can cause troubling results. Perhaps people are arrested who shouldn’t be, not because they deserve it, but to help get the officer’s activity numbers up.
In their lawsuit, they allege that as whistleblowers they’ve become victims of retaliation.
The court papers paint a picture of how ostracism in a police department works.
I left messages for all the top officers named in the lawsuit, including Chief Gary Tittle. I also contacted his boss, City Manager Don Magner, and the city’s lawyer, John Lynch. None responded to The Watchdog.
In previous court filings, the city denies the allegations and says...
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