5 cities denied state police’s OK to patrol interstates

— In the two years since a state law was revised to set clear-cut criteria to guide the Arkansas State Police in deciding which municipal police departments can patrol interstates and other controlled-access highways in the state, five cities have been denied that authorization.

In 1987, in response to small towns running speed traps on major highways, the Legislature gave the state police director authority to limit which municipal agencies are authorized to patrol major highways. The speed-trap concern is a factor in obtaining that authorization.

The town of Turrell was denied its request because ofits past ticket-writing practices and the fact that in 2005, one of its officers demanded a $400 “cash bond” from an out-of-state motorist he had stopped on Interstate 55, and threatened the woman with a month in jail if she didn’t pay.

The 31 towns and cities in the state now authorized to patrol limited-access highways must be able to show state police officials that they write no more than 30 percent of their traffic tickets on those highways, or, according to the regulations, it is presumed that they are abusing their “police power.”

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Highway patrol

“The big thing is the safety,” said Bill Sadler, a state police spokesman. “There are some understood differences between patrolling city streets and controlled-access freeways.”

The law was in the spotlight in December when the Arkansas Court of Appeals threw out the drunken-driving and speeding convictions of James McKim, who was pulled over Feb. 11, 2007, after a Bryant police officer reportedly clocked him traveling 84 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 30.

The law, which is in Arkansas Code Annotated 12-8-106, was sponsored by former state Sen. Jon Fitch, D-Hindsville, who said he had received constituent complaints about the town of Johnson, which is on Interstate 540 between Fayetteville and Springdale. At the time, the town’s population was about 800.

Traffic arrests in Johnson rose 50 percent in the first half of 1986 compared with the same period in 1985, according to an Arkansas Gazette article at the time. More than half of 1986’s arrests on traffic charges were made on the 2.4-mile stretch of the four-lane controlled-access highway, which was known as the U.S. 71 bypass at the time but now is part of Interstate 540. Arrests for drunken driving rose from six in the first half of 1985 to 63 during thefirst six months of 1986, according to the article.

“It was obvious why they were using this stretch of highway,” said Fitch, who now is director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission.

The law still allows municipal police agencies to respond to an “accident or other emergency on a limited-access highway.”

KEEPING TRACK?

The law doesn’t apply to county sheriffs, who under Arkansas Code Annotated 14-14-1301, “shall apprehend and commit to jail all felons and other offenders” in the counties under their jurisdiction.

Still, sheriffs’ offices generally have more area than municipal agencies and less manpower to cover it, which means motorists won’t see them targeting the interstates. In Pulaski County, deputies can and do write tickets on interstates, but only if the deputies happen upon traffic offenses while traveling on interstates in the county, said John Rehrauer, a spokesman for the Pulaski County sheriff’s office.

Under the regulations adopted in 2008, municipal police agency officials are supposed to keep track of the number of tickets they write on interstates as compared with their city streets, but they say the number is too small to bother tracking unless it is specifically requested.

“My answer is going to be zero,” Alma Police Chief Russell White said when asked how many tickets his agency issued on Interstate 40 in 2009. “We don’t actively patrol it.”

White’s department, however, secured the state police authorization because I-40 splits the town of 4,160, he said.

The Little Rock Police Department also has state police authorization to patrol the interstates within its city limits. But the agency said it has too many other patrol duties on city streets to focus its energies on interstates, and it suggested that the tickets that Little Rock officers write on the interstates are a tiny fraction of the total they issue.

“We don’t enforce anything on the interstate,” said Lt. Terry Hastings, a Little Rock police spokesman, hastening to add, however, that department personnel won’t turn a blind eye to traffic offenseson an interstate. “If they write a ticket, it’s because something happened right in front of them,” Hastings said.

Some city police agencies have been caught enforcing laws on the interstate without permission.

In 2001, the state police forwarded an investigation to a prosecutor, claiming that officers in the Crittenden County town of Sunset had issued traffic tickets without the state police director’s permission. The prosecutor sent a letter to the Police Department demanding that its officers stop the practice or legal action would be taken.

CHANGES IN 2007

Before 2007, it was difficult to ascertain why one agency might be authorized to make highway stops and another might not. That bothered the Mulberry Police Department, which asked state Rep. Beverly Pyle, R-Cedarville, to sponsor a law spelling out what the state police director must consider in weighing whether to grant a police agency permission to patrol interstates

“We needed some clarity,” she said. “Some municipalities needed guidelines. I think we’ve gotten that.”

Under Act 371 of 2007, which Pyle said she developed with the help of municipal and state police officials, the criteria includes public safety, the level of training a municipal police force has, the size of the force, the needs of the state police, and the number and location of other city police departments granted theauthorization.

Mulberry applied for authorization under the new law but was turned down. It was one of five police agencies denied authorization.

In a letter to Mulberry’s police chief, state police director Col. Winford Phillips noted that cities on both sides of Mulberry along Interstate 40 - Alma and Ozark - already had such authorization. He also noted the fact that Mulberry’s downtown is two miles from the interstate as a factor in denying the permission. The new policechief, Joshua Craig, was out of the office Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

In addition to Turrell and Mulberry, Phillips turned down requests by the Tyronza, Greenland and Wheatley police departments.

In the case of Turrell, Phillips cited a 2005 incident in which a Wisconsin woman called the Crittenden County sheriff’s office after a Turrell police officer pulled her over for speeding on Interstate 55. She was “scared that a man who identified himself as a police officer in an unmarked unit was asking her to make a $400 transaction from an ATM [automated teller machine],” according to an incident report from the sheriff’s office. She was at the ATM because the officer told her he couldn’t accept a check for a “cash bond.”

A state trooper soon arrived and told the Turrell officer that it would be in his“best interest” to allow the woman to sign the citation and “go on her way.”

Turrell Police Chief Greg Martin couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday despite repeated calls to the department. Turrell Mayor Franklin Lockhart Sr. didn’t return a telephone call.

TYRONZA’S CASE

In Tyronza, Police Chief Tony Turner expressed disappointment that his department’s request to patrol U.S. 63 was rejected, though he was quick to add that the department has a good working relationship with area state troopers and will assist them on U.S. 63 when requested.

“The thing that bothers us is [U.S. 63] is within our own jurisdiction,” Turner said. “We take an oath to uphold the laws in our jurisdiction. We’re being told we can’t go out there and enforce our laws because it’s a controlledaccess facility.”

Phillips cited the size of the Tyronza force - three full-time officers and one part-time officer, according to Turner - and the fact that four troopers stationed in Poinsett County “constantly” patrol that highway.

“I do not believe having Tyronza’s police officers taking time from their ordinary duties is necessary,” Phillips wrote.

While conceding that not patrolling U.S. 63 has cost the city some revenue, Turner brushed off past criticism that his town of 918 people was a speed trap before upgrades made U.S. 63 a controlledaccess highway in February 2008. “Everyone we ticketed out there was breaking the law.”

In the case of the Bryant Police Department, it had limited permission to enforce laws on Interstate 30 at the time of the 2007 drunken-driving case. It had state police approval to patrol the five miles of the interstate that goes through the city, but its authorization letter, according to the appeals court ruling, specifically limited its authorization to “generalpatrol duties only” and didn’t “authorize selective traffic enforcement or interdiction.”

McKim was stopped by an officer who was set up to check for speeders on the interstate, which the ruling interpreted as selective enforcement.

Bryant now has a new authorization letter that contains no limitations, Lt. J.W. Plouch, who is the patrol division supervisor, said Wednesday. As a result, Bryant officers haven’t changed the enforcement practices they were using before the appeals court ruling.

Law enforcement on the interstate generally is limited to seat-belt and drunken-driving offenses, as part of initiatives often funded with state or federal grants, Plouch said. Regular patrol officers continue to spend most of their time enforcing traffic laws on Bryant city streets, he said.

And what about the city that sparked the law? Johnson, which now has a population estimated at 4,500, has no desire to patrol I-540, Police Chief Vernon Sisemore said.

Sisemore and his dozen officers “have enough to take care of here,” he said. “We’ll work it if requested, but that’s about it.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/02/2010

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