Questions police motives

To the editor:

As I have moved from town to town over the years, I have inevitably heard negative comments regarding local police in whatever jurisdiction I lived in. I always took them with a grain of salt and believed that I was only hearing such things based on a the point of view of somebody who had received a ticket.

My children are raised to have a polite respect for law enforcement and not to listen to the negative comments their friends make. That said, I now believe that should I ever undergo a radical personality change and decide to live a life of crime, I’ll begin it in Palmer. I’ll do so because I have come to realize that the Palmer police are too busy lurking around the high school pouncing on teenaged drivers, pulling over people with dim brake lights, missing turn signals and missing mud-flaps to possibly have the time to take on anything more serious.

In the past few years since our return to Alaska, I have witnessed time and time again the Palmer police engaged in heavy enforcement for such petty infractions that it now just seems silly. I’ve spend the day performing errands in town and watched them pull over several people in a short span of time for not wearing seat belts. I got pulled over the day I purchased a car for having expired tabs (by two months, and I was literally on my way home after buying it. I was going to transfer the title the following day, of course) and was actually given a ticket despite demonstrating the reason to the officer (gotta get that revenue).

I know of a young man who was pulled over for a burned-out headlight. He explained to the officer he was unaware it had burned out (it was a gloomy afternoon, not the middle of the night) but showed him he carried spares and would immediatley replace it. Nope, he got a ticket (not even a ‘fix-it’ ticket). These are just a few of the examples I have seen over the years.

I can’t in good conscience continue to remain neutral when others speak of how ridiculous the Palmer police are, because this makes too many times I’ve witnessed it. Granted, the tickets they wrote were for legitimate infractions, but I used to believe all police departments used logic, common sense and empathy when performing their jobs. I used to believe that police departments don’t really write tickets due to quota or budget needs, but now I have to wonder. Why else for the over-the-top enforcement? Oh well, I guess it could be worse ‚ thank God I don’t live in Houston.

Ben Compton

Palmer