Metro Transit Police Chief Ron Pavlik addressed questions Thursday about a ticket-writing contest held among officers.
The ticket-writing contest encouraged arrest and enforcement by offering prizes as a reward. One officer received a $20 gift card for writing many citations. Pavlik said an officer notified him of the contest.
The program was shut down after an investigation last summer, but Pavlik insists the contest was a misunderstanding.
“You look at the leader, she was trying to empower her officers to do work. Obviously the perception of that is wrong. We never targeted anybody, we never saw a spike in arrests or citations,” Pavlik said.
He described the police lieutenant as having good intentions and was "trying to be thinking outside the box” but that ultimately the message didn’t look right.
The officer who started the contest was never disciplined.
