Alabama town's traffic ticketing scandal leads to police chief's resignation

[Jilly_in_VA]

Brookside, Alabama, a former mining community of about 1,250 with a median household income less than $40,000, has no traffic lights and only a handful of two-lane roads, yet it raked in so much revenue from traffic fines and forfeitures in 2020, it amounted to almost half of its $1.2 million municipal budget.

The curious case of the financial income of the town, on the outskirts of Birmingham, exploded into a scandal following a local news report on AL.com last week. It resulted in Brookside Police Chief Mike Jones resigning Tuesday on the same day Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth requested a state audit, and amid calls for state and federal investigations.

"This city is a ticking, ticking time bomb waiting to explode," state Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who has called for other town officials to resign, told the NBC affiliate WVTM in Birmingham. "It's the wild, Wild West, and they created their own wild, Wild West."

As Brookside's earnings draw further scrutiny, with Givan planning a town hall Tuesday to allow people who say they've been exploited by the police force to come forward, advocacy organizations are emphasizing that it is no outlier and highlights how across the country, traffic fines and related fees are being used to fill municipal coffers at the expense of people who are often financially struggling and from communities of color.


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-towns-traffic-ticketing-scandal-leads-police-chiefs-resignatio-rcna13801]

[viva la]

1. That was an underlying issue in Ferguson--

Michael Brown "jaywalked," and was going to be charged and fined. Tickets and fines on the black population were a major source of municipal income, to the point these were paying for much of the city expenses.

Finally someone got killed-- but for years, residents would be plunged into debt and hassled in litigation for minor infractions that would be ignored everywhere else.