Tonawanda, NY (WBEN) The union representing Town of Tonawanda Police officers says it will challenge letters being sent out to officers the town says violated the Taylor Law with a work stoppage earlier this year.
Supervisor Joe Emminger says he supports the officers, but the actions in January and February were not acceptable. "In this instance, obviously we believe that a large number of officers, for whatever reason, did not do their job to their fullest extent," says Emminger. He says that definition by a strike is not set by the town, rather by PERB, and he notes it was a required action that the town board had to take. "We have approximately 20 to 25 officers who wrote zero tickets in that three week period. So what would be best? Are you going to say are there quotas? Of course, they're not quotas, okay, but every police officer, when you take that job, part of your job is to enforce the traffic laws of your community, and traffic laws means you write tickets and approximately 25 officers wrote zero tickets in that three week period," notes Emminger.
Andy Thompson of the Town of Tonawanda Police Club says there was more on officers' plates than normal. "We had training. We switched from our 40 calibers to nine millimeters, so every officer had 16 hours of mandatory training, which actually put the road at minimum manning," says Thompson. "On top of that, the weather was horrible through this entire period, and we had almost 2,000 more calls for service than we did in previous years. So it's not a, it's not a it wasn't an intentional ticket slowdown."
Thompson says officers did make stops, and officers have discretion. "A vehicle traffic warning is the same as a ticket. We're stopping a car. We're identifying the problem, and we're correcting the issue. That's where the town seems to be at a disconnect from us, because there's apparently a quota with them, which is illegal, and they're going to be fining us based off of their their decisive quota," claims Thompson. He says the town requires each officer to issue one traffic ticket a day.
Thompson says his personal review showed he did not do enough proactive policing when he did not meet the quota. "We've got eight cops on the road at any shift. So when you do the math, that's a lot of extra work. That's a lot of extra calls we're going to we don't have time because of our manning right now. And to be honest with you, to set a quota is illegal in New York state, so they're going to be fining us, and they're going to be taking money out of our pocket because we haven't met their perceived quota, which is illegal," notes Thompson.
Thompson says the union will challenge the violation claims. Emminger says despite rumors, no one will be fired.
