Baltimore: 2,000 Red Light Citations Signed By Dead Officer

by Edward Niedermeyer

February 15th, 2011 1:32 PM

baltimore 2 000 red light citations signed by dead officer

Baltimore’s WBAL TV reports that some 2,000 red light camera citations were “verified” by a police officer who died months ago. Baltimore police say only external copies of citations bear the signature of the deceased officer, and that internal versions of the citations bear the signature of officers who were alive when they signed them. Still, it’s not clear how the deceased officer’s signature appeared on the copies of the citations that were sent out… and given some of the shenanigans that have surrounded the red light camera industry, I’m sure some will speculate that a conspiracy is afoot. Especially with camera proliferation on the march in Baltimore County. [WBAL won’t allow embedding of its videos, but you can find the report on Youtube]

#Crime&Punishment #Government #Law

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4 of 10 comments

TonyJZX on Feb 15, 2011

now THAT is a hard working officer wish there were more like him

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MarcKyle64 on Feb 15, 2011

It's just Robo-signature-Cop hard at work..

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Kid cassady on Feb 15, 2011

All this, and they're no closer to finding Officer Dozerman's missing service weapon.

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Zas on Feb 16, 2011
Baltimore police say only external copies of citations bear the signature of the deceased officer, and that internal versions of the citations bear the signature of officers who were alive when they signed them. So, are they saying that only internal copies of the citations are signed by cops who are alive, but the ones sent out are arbitrarily signed by a computer system? Sounds to me like a few defense lawyers will be having a field day with this bit of news, especially if the signatures aren't matching and that the BPD is now on official record saying that there are signature differences in the tickets being issued. The second end of that part of the sentence is also odd as a statement from BPD: so, the officers who signed them are now deceased? Someone in the BPD PR department has their head up their ass and needs to put out an official statement before a whole bunch of tickets get thrown out for improper procedures of the ticketing system.

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