After uncovering Austin PD warrant less surveillance deal with Austin Energy, I filed an Open Records request with Dallas PD.
Sgt. Randy Hooper of the Open Records unit reports that no such agreements exists for either Dallas PD or the Dallas County Sheriff. Your electric bills are safe, for now.
I don’t know if this is a victory for privacy or freedom, but at least it is not a loss.
DMN has a great piece on a new scandal for the DPD. It seems that 3 officers wrote tickets without probable cause, wrote multiple tickets for the same offense, had citizens sign “blank tickets” and filled in the infractions later, and issued “at large” tickets after citing an individual in person.
At large tickets are issued when the suspect is not available to cite in person. If the ticket is not mailed to the right address and the suspect never appears in court a warrant can be issued. It seems that defendants were jailed without any knowledge of a ticket being issued.
DMN speculates that these highly decorated officers were motivated to “write more tickets so that it appears they are working harder than their peers. Cpls. Stecker, Nelson and Schoelen have been prolific ticket writers.. “
Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog