“Sorry, man,” I said. “It’s my job.” The twenty-something-year-old man’s brown eyes bulged; his mouth hung open. He wore a polo style shirt with the name of the shop where he worked. “But…” he finally said. “But I just spit on the sidewalk. That’s all I did.”“Right,” I said, “and that’s against the law.” He barked an incredulous laugh, shook his head, and said, “Haven’t you ever spit on the sidewalk?”
I looked down at my ticket book. I wondered how many cops wore reflective or dark sunglasses like mine, not so much for the glare of the sun, but to hide their shame at having to write petty citations just to keep their stats high enough to please their superiors. I glanced up, but couldn’t look the young man directly in the eyes. Instead, I spoke to his deviated septum. “I’m sorry. I don’t make the laws. I just enforce them.”
And enforce them I did. Week after week, I maintained my spot as one of the top producers on the bicycle squad, but this was the price: upsetting decent people by giving them petty citations. I felt trapped. If I wanted better assignments, or to be looked at for a promotion, I had to produce consistent, impressive numbers.
The man ran his hands through his hair, looked around and muttered,“I can’t believe this.” His gaze bounced up to me and he spoke a bit louder, angrier. “I’m getting over a cold. I had this, this phlegm, and I just had to get it out or choke on it. I mean, c’mon. Please, sir. There’s not even a garbage can nearby.”
My right hand twitched with the desire to rip the citation in half, but the words of my sergeant from this morning prevented such a mercy: “Gentleman, if you want to be on a bike, on this squad, we need the numbers.” I handed the young man the ticket and, in a flat voice, provided my automatic, memorized explanation of what he needed to do to take care of his citation.
While my lips moved, my mind hauled me back about three years. Stacey and I were in our second year of marriage, living paycheck to paycheck, our first child born only a couple of months before. I sat on the driver’s seat of our 2003 Hyundai Elantra. We were merging onto the freeway onramp when a screech erupted behind us and consumed our cab. I clenched my teeth; my body tensed. Our car lurched forward and the Elantra’s rear end popped up. Metal groaned. Tires screamed. My seat belt bit a line from left shoulder to right hip. angle, rear bumper mangled. I drew a couple quick, sharp breaths, feeling my heart hammer against my ribs. Remembering I wasn’t alone, I reached for my wife with a trembling hand.“You okay?”
Stacey was pale. Her lower lip quivered. Tears spilled from her eyes. She gasped, blinked furiously, and twisted to look into the back at our screaming daughter. A man stumbled out of the Altima holding the back of his neck. I exited our car, too. “You okay?” I said to the man. He grimaced at my car, then at something behind me. “You okay?” I asked again. He focused on me and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
I turned to find a Toyota Tacoma, its front smashed, the bumper hanging askew. The driver, an older man with a beard, more gray than brown, was shaking his head, eyes squeezed shut, lips moving. I ducked into our back seat, stroked Ava’s cheek and spoke softly, saying things like, “Daddy’s here. It’s okay. We’re alright. It’s alright.” I walked around our car, surveying the damage and wondering if it would even be worth it to fix.
Sirens approached and a South Jordan Police car stopped behind the wreck.A stocky officer with a mustache and dark sunglasses approached each of us, collecting driver’s licenses and registrations. We all waited inside our vehicles. Stacey held Ava, rocking and soothing her until her crying ceased and her eyelids grew heavy with sleep. I called our insurance agent while we waited. About ten minutes later, I noticed in my rearview mirror the officer standing beside the Tacoma. He handed the man a ticket. The older man didn’t argue, didn’t look surprised, just resigned.
The officer approached my open window, bent closer, and offered me my license and registration. I took my paperwork with hands that still shook, though not so badly. “Your license expired yesterday,” the officer said, scribbling on a small pad of paper. “Sorry,” I said, “I hadn’t realized. I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow.” The officer handed me a clipboard with a paper attached. He looked at theAltima as he said, “You need to sign here. It’s a ticket for your expired driver license.”
My hands stopped halfway to the clipboard. I stared at him in disbelief. I swallowed, thinking, We were just rear-ended, inconvenienced beyond belief by a reckless driver, and now I’m getting a ticket for being expired by one day? My bewilderment turned to indignation. “Officer,” I said, but he interrupted. “Sorry, man, just doing my job.” Sorry, man, just doing my job.
I had just told this young man who’d spit on the sidewalk nearly verbatim what that South Jordan officer had told me a year before I became a cop. I’d become that officer and this young man had become me. Grimacing, head sinking between my shoulders, I shuffled to my bike and hurried away. My only consolation was in knowing that my supervisor would be satisfied by today’s numbers and I wouldn’t be the one hauled into his officer for a butt-chewing.
Before becoming a cop, I’d known vaguely, in the back of my mind, that some sort of quota system probably existed, at least to some degree. I just didn’t realize how bad it was until now. Later that evening, I met up with one of my best friends on the bike squad.We half sat, half stood on our bicycles, side-by-side on a sidewalk. We watched Pioneer Park and chatted.
“I can’t believe I actually gave a guy a ticket for spitting on the sidewalk,”I said. “Aren’t we supposed to be peace officers, not so much police officers?” My friend gave me a sideways, quizzical glance. “What do you mean?” I shrugged. “You know, keeping the peace. Making people feel safer. Not micro-managing every behavior, breathing down their necks. I swear, every day more and more people hate us. And why wouldn’t they?” My friend chuckled. I shot him a scowl. “Sorry,” he said. “What you’re saying isn’t funny. I’m just thinking about what our sergeant says he wants next.”
I winced. “And what’s that?” “He’s mandating five misdemeanor arrests per day. No matter what. No exceptions.”
I shook my head. My stomach felt like it was digesting itself. Enough was enough. What were we supposed to do if we didn’t witness enough crimes Maybe put a stack of money on a park bench and, when somebody picked it up, tackle the person and arrest them for theft? A-ha! Gotcha! Five misdemeanor arrests. Sarge will be so proud. I wondered if half of the animosity I heard about in the news between people across the country and police was due to this stupid statistical quota system. How easy it must be for a minority to feel picked on, thinking this type of senseless harassment could only be because of his or her race. I could see how trivial things could explode into a more serious situation all over some stats-driven citation. That man who I’d cited for spitting on the sidewalk could’ve easily gotten loud and aggressive. How would it be trying to explain to internal affairs, or to a jury, how spitting on the sidewalk led to the spitter being tasered or pepper sprayed. Or worse.
“Hey,” my friend said, “it’s time. Let’s go clock out and hope for a better day tomorrow.” He snorted loudly, then spit on the grass in front of us. He grinned at me, then pedaled away. I started to smile, but couldn’t quite get it to stay. Somebody had to say something. Somebody had to object to this unreasonable push for numbers for the sake of numbers. There had to be a better way to measure success or to motivate officers to do their job. The current way of doing things was turning me into a person I didn’t like.
As I followed my friend to the police station, I thought again of the family in the van that we saved from being impounded. I remembered how good that felt to help someone, not crush that guy and his family under the big, black boot of justice in order to get one more number. I wanted to be a cop to help people, to make the world safer, not to harass people over petty infractions. I wanted to be the good guy from the movies, not the bully that everyone loathes to see heading in their direction. But what could I do? How could I complain without getting in trouble? I wanted promotions. I wanted special assignments.I felt trapped in a box. When I finally arrived home and got into bed, it took a long time to fall asleep with all these thoughts in my head.
The next day, just as my buddy on the bike squad had said, our sergeant sat us down and gave us his expectation of five misdemeanor arrests per day, per officer. I sat with my hands balled into fists, jaw clenched. I kept telling myself that I had to say something when he was done with his presentation. This whole system of promotion and special assignments and paid time off and other perks based on an officer’s stats wasn’t right. It wasn’t right that our department had to put up certain numbers in order to qualify for federal grant money, or that part of our funding from local sources was rooted in stats, too.
“No.” Our sergeant froze mid-sentence. The room plunged into silence, everyone very still. I felt eyes that seemed to drill into my head. I squirmed. My heart felt like a frantic bird trapped at the bottom of my throat, but I’d already spoken aloud. I was committed. No going back. Our sergeant’s eyes narrowed; his lips were a tight, thin line. “What did you say, Moutsos?” “No” I said again. “How can we do this?” I shook my head. “Can you imagine if the citizens of Salt Lake knew we had to arrest five of them each day just to hit a number? What if there’s nobody to arrest? What if we get to the end of our shift and only have two? I thought law enforcement was about serving and protecting, not punishing just so we can get an extra day of paid vacation.”
Word by word, our sergeant’s face grew redder and redder. In a low, hissing voice, he said, “Get out there and do your job. All of you. Go!” We rose and shuffled out, no one speaking, heads bowed, no one making direct eye contact.
At the end of our shift, our squad gathered in the bicycle office for our line down, or debriefing. Most everyone chatted about their day and the calls they had gone on. That’s usually how line-down went. Story time of the craziness we went through for the day. Everyone seemed pretty relaxed. But not me. Our sergeant entered the small room and we sat. He stood behind a table, holding a stack of tickets. He called a name then, one by one, laid down the tickets, counting them off.
“One, two, three, four, five, six. Good.” “One, two, three, four, five. Henderson, you barely made it.” A few uneasy chuckles puttered through the air. With each name and counting, my heart beat a little faster. The room seemed to shrink and grow hotter. “Moutsos,” our sergeant said. “One, two, three…” Our sergeant glared at me. I stared back as calmly as I could. I then blurred my vision to look at him so the intensity and fear didn’t overcome me.
His eyes bulged. Lips snarled. Skin reddened. I leaned back in my chair, surprised by the sudden vehemence in that expression. “Moutsos!” Spit flipped off his lips. “Get in the hall. Now!” He spun and stormed outside
I grimaced and glanced to my right, just enough to notice my best friend on the squad hunch his shoulders and shake his head. I stood. The moment hung across my shoulders like a three-hundred-pound chain. I trudged out of the room. The moment the door closed behind me, our sergeant erupted, jabbing a finger at my face.
“How dare you. You insult me in front of everyone on the squad.” A flurry of mother-effers and other curses ensued. “Let me tell you something. You are going to stay after shift and arrest two more people.” More cursing, then, “Go tell everyone they’re dismissed.”
Our sergeant whirled and stomped across the parking lot to his unmarked police car. I lifted my chin. Did he really have to talk to me like that? Seriously?I was trying to bring up a legitimate question, not trying to undermine his authority or whatever it was he thought I was doing.
I returned to the bicycle office, glanced at all the expectant faces, and said,“Sarge says you can go home.” “Yeah,” someone said, “I think we all heard.” “Is he really making you stay after to arrest two more people?” one of my partners asked. I nodded. “Looks like it.” “I’m with you,” another partner said. “This five ticket thing…” Everyone started to leave. I just stared at the piles of five or more tickets on the table. A soft punch to my shoulder seemed to say, Hang in there, Moutsos, you’ll be alright. Then I was alone. I waited a moment, then headed outside.
As my bicycle squad partners got in their cars and drove home, I heard them call, one by one, to the main radio dispatch that they were 10-42. Off-duty. Not me. I had two arrests to make or I couldn’t go home to my wife and kids. Stupid. I yanked open my patrol car door and plopped down on my seat. I huffed and glared sideways at my sergeant, who was still waiting in his car. I pulled out of the underground parking, turned onto the street, then parked at the nearest corner of the nearest intersection. I waited, glaring out my window at the night.
My sergeant parked across the intersection, kitty-corner to me. His sour expression, lit from below by his open laptop, was directed at me. Fine, I thought, gritting my teeth. We’ll see how long you want to play this childish game. He glared at me. I glared at him. Time crawled. I studied the crescent moon. I frowned at traffic. I wriggled on my seat, trying to get more comfortable. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel.
Stats, like vultures searching for a carcass, circled my thoughts. It seemed to me that writing tickets the way we did was a lot like a fireman starting fires to stay employed, then putting them out to look like the hero. It was a sick game, but I’d have to play that game if I wanted to transfer to a specialty position or promote to sergeant. I barked a humorless laugh.
An hour passed. Our squad walkie talkie crackled. My sergeant said. “Moutsos, go home. We’ll talk first thing tomorrow.” My sergeant never did speak to me about how I’d complained about his five misdemeanor arrests proposal. A few weeks later, however, one of my partners told me that he’d heard my name brought up in a conversation about stats. Another partner confided a similar experience. I could only hope my reputation wasn’t tarnished. Time would tell. Looking back this seemed to be the turning point of my career with the administration. All because of quotas.
