The officers say Deputy Chief Robert Leary strictly enforces the quota. If they don't write enough, they say, they can lose their cars, get reprimanded or end up working in the county jail. Our computer-assisted investigation of more than 400,000 tickets from 1997 through 1999 backs up their claims of a quota. Other departments, like the Indianapolis Police Department, issue tickets at a steady rate in any given month. But when it comes to Marion County's reserve deputies, the output spikes sharply at the end of the month.
Officers say that's because they feel the pressure of the quota as the month wears on.
In fact, in the three-year period we analyzed, reserve deputies wrote more than 8,000 tickets at the start of the month. The pattern is clear with individual officers over the three-year period as well. One officer, for example, wrote 16 tickets on the first of the month and 64 on the 31st. And another wrote just 9 on the first but 73 on the 30th. Internal documents obtained by Eyewitness News also show the emphasis on numbers.