Two Richardson police officers are suing the city and senior police leadership over what they claim is a traffic ticket quota.
Officers Kayla Walker and David Conklin are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed March 17 in Dallas County against the city. In addition to the ticket quota, the lawsuit alleges that senior officers have retaliated against Walker and Conklin after they made public statements to City Council and the media.
According to the lawsuit, the Richardson Police Department, under former Police Chief Jimmy Spivey, required officers to reach a departmental “average” in tickets written per month. Failure to maintain that would result in disciplinary action, including poor evaluations and possible termination for cause, the suit stated.
State law prohibits the use of ticket quotas.
Walker spoke about the alleged quota during the public comment section of the April 19, 2021, City Council meeting. She said the department had been “illegally using quotas to evaluate and discipline officers” for the entirety of her 13-year tenure.
“Patrol officers are threatened with punishment for not writing enough tickets, arresting enough people and/or making enough citizen contacts,” Walker said during the April 19 meeting.
Spivey retired in May 2021 after a 50-year career and was replaced by Gary Tittle in June 2021.
The city conducted an independent investigation into the allegations, according to a report presented at a July 22 special City Council meeting. After interviewing seven officers within the department and reviewing years of officer performance data, the investigation concluded that the evidence does not support claims of an illegal activity.
At that July meeting, Tittle announced he would enact various changes to the department’s policies in hopes of creating consistent guidelines and expectations for officers.
“My goal is to make sure that the Richardson Police Department serves our community in a fair and equal way with professionalism and integrity, and I will stand for nothing less,” Tittle said at the July meeting. “After having reviewed the investigation, this report provides us an opportunity to do things better.”
The lawsuit alleges the investigation “was a whitewash of the allegations” and exonerated the police department without legally addressing Walker’s accusation. In addition, the suit claims officers validated the existence and pervasiveness of a ticket quota during the investigation.
Richardson Officer Mike Wieczorek said in an email that it would be premature for the city to comment on the suit because the city has not been served or seen a filed, stamped version of the lawsuit. He referred to the city's statement posted last year for more information.
