McKeever Called to Comment Again on Police Quota Claim

A second article citing claims by City of Falls Church police officers that they're required to meet firm quotas for ticket-writing appeared in the Washington Post last weekend. Following on an initial front-page story in early August, last Sunday's by Tom Jackman, quoted Scott Rhodes, president of the Falls Church Coalition of Police.

Falls Church City Manager Dan McKeever, also quoted in the article, expressed frustration when asked to comment at the Falls Church City Council meeting Tuesday. Earlier, he had told the News-Press he did not intend to say anything about the story.

But when pressed by a Council member, McKeever said that "a good faith effort is being made" to resolve a dispute with the officers in question, but added, "I can't resolve fairly and in good faith this matter if I have to respond to newspaper articles."

Making no reference to quotas, he suggested the matter revolves around standards for performance reviews of police officers. "We measure according to industry standards," he told the Council, noting that "responsibility and accountability" are a major part of that.

"But it is not my responsibility to respond to newspapers," he added. "But I address these matters in meetings, where we speak frankly. My responsibility is not to a newspaper, but at the negotiating table." He reiterated that he's "working hard to resolve these things."

Asked by a Council member if surrounding jurisdictions handle their performance reviews by "doing many of the same things," McKeever responded, "That's absolutely correct."

Officer Rhodes, in a telephone conversation with the News-Press Tuesday, said a meeting with McKeever was slated for this Friday. He insisted that Falls Church police are required to meet "hard, set numbers" for writing tickets as part of their performance ratings and that the policy is problematic "morally and integrity-wise."

According to Jackman's article, Falls Church police reported that officers are required to write an average of three traffic tickets or make three arrests per 12-hour shift. Failure to make the quota, it reports, "results in an automatic 90-day probation period with no pay raise during that period."

But "there are expectations in the community about how we should be policed," McKeever told the Council Tuesday. "There is a direct correlation between traffic enforcement and the accident rate." He said the City's police "do a very good job," noting that 75% of traffic tickets written during the past fiscal year were for moving, and not just parking, violations. "That's traffic safety," he said.