Seattle cop writing 80% of weed citations reassigned

[Stoner4Life]

SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Seattle Police Department has reassigned an officer who single-handedly issued about 80 percent of the marijuana tickets handed out in the city during the first half of this year, authorities said on Wednesday.

Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole said staff reviewing data to prepare the department's first biannual report on marijuana enforcement found that 66 of 83 citations for public pot use were given out by just one officer.

"In some instances, the officer added notes to the tickets," O'Toole said in a statement, adding that some of the notes requested the attention of City Attorney Peter Holmes and were addressed to "Petey Holmes."

In one case, she said, "the officer indicated he flipped a coin when contemplating which subject to cite."

In another, O'Toole added, he referred to Washington's voter-approved changes to marijuana laws as "silly."

Washington state voted in 2012 to legalize the sale of cannabis to adults for recreational use but does not allow it to be used in public places.

She said the officer's actions were reported to the police's Office of Professional Accountability, and that he will not perform patrol duties while an investigation takes place.

The six-month report, which was released last week, found African Americans in Seattle were ticketed disproportionately to their population for using pot in public.

The police department said 36 percent of the tickets were issued to African-Americans, who make up just eight percent of the city's population.

A spokesman said the SPD recognized the numbers were disproportionate, and O'Toole reiterated on Wednesday that the study was designed to provide more oversight and to flag "anomalies or outliers" in Seattle's marijuana enforcement.

 

[Stoner4Life]

this goes hand in hand of police abusing new laws with last weeks article about Seattle's homeless & African Americans being cited for weed violations.



http://www.buffalonews.com/associat...eattle-police:-Homeless-arrested-most-for-pot


SEATTLE (AP) — An analysis of the first six months of Seattle police enforcement under new marijuana laws finds homeless people and African American males are more likely to be ticketed for public pot use than anyone else.

Officers issued 82 tickets for public possession and use between Jan. 1 and June 30, according to the report released Wednesday. Most of the citations were issued in public parks in the downtown core, where some homeless people hang out. One person was ticketed twice.

Almost all the people cited are men with an average age of 34. Although more than two-thirds of the people ticketed are younger than 40, people as old as 77 have been ticketed for marijuana infractions during the past six months.

About 36 percent of those arrested were African Americans, who are 8 percent of Seattle's population according to the 2010 census. About 46 percent of those ticketed told police they lived in a homeless shelter, transitional housing or had addresses associated with homeless services.

The researchers caution that the numbers and time span of their study make their conclusions preliminary.

The police department plans to release reports on its marijuana research every six months to answer a new city law that requires monitoring of enforcement by age, race, sex and education.

Initiative 502, approved by state voters in 2012, included a civil fine for public consumption of marijuana.

Criminologist Loren T. Atherley of the Seattle Police Department, who was one of the marijuana report's authors, notes that because marijuana stores opened in the state a few days after the research period ended, the situation in Seattle likely has already changed.

Homeless people are disproportionately represented among those ticketed for public marijuana use likely because they are the population most likely to be found breaking other laws in public places, Atherley said.

He compared the infraction to the open-container law for alcohol, although he has not done research on arrests under that law so could not compare data between the two kinds of tickets.

The department is hoping to get other researchers interested in their data and will continue to study it.

"We're going to see how this unfolds," Atherley said. He predicted the dataset would mature in another few years and researchers would be able to offer many more concrete conclusions.

"This is probably an issue that will be on the forefront of the public policy debate at least for 10 years to come," he said.

In a statement from Seattle Councilman Nick Licata and City Attorney Pete Holmes, they suggested the data indicates trends for race and homelessness that the city should continue to monitor. They also said the data shows a need for places where people can legally consume marijuana in Seattle.


nypd was guilty of similar tactics concerning weed: minor possession was a ticket-able offense, public display was an arrest, a fine, some short time.

So! a cop would stop and frisk a guy on the street, then tell him to empty his pockets which is a lawful command, BOOM! as soon as that weed saw sunlight out came the cuffs.

judges got sick of this shit and shut the little piggies down.......


99.5% of my buzz happens @ my house, safe, secure, private, all the comforts; the homeless have none of that, in fact they probably use weed to try attain some of those same comforts.