One Seattle Cop Wrote 80 Percent of City's Weed Tickets This Year
If you've been busted for publicly smoking pot in Seattle this year, chances are you have one guy to blame.
According to Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole (above), a single officer was responsible for 80 percent of the weed citations the city has issued this year, writing 66 of 2014's 83 tickets. O'Toole wrote on a police department blog that the unnamed officer would sometimes add notes to City Attorney Peter Holmes to the tickets, addressing them to "Petey," or flip a coin when deciding whom to cite. One note refers to Washington's legalization law as "silly."
But things are about to get better: The officer was reassigned and reported to the department's Office of Professional Accountability, the police chief writes, and will be taken off patrol until an investigation into his policing is complete.
She adds: "Please know that officers who perform professional and constitutional police service and enforcement will always have my full support."
