You might see it as Big Brother turning on Big Brother.
The proliferation of speed and red light cameras -- and more might be coming to Baltimore County -- is catching cops as well as citizens. And police departments in Baltimore and around the state are holding cops accountable for the tickets -- unless they're responding to an emergency call.
Many city officers getting snared are in unmarked cars, such as homicide and drug detectives, many of whom argue that they need to bend or break traffic laws to effectively do their jobs, even if it isn't evident that they're racing to a call for help.
But patrol officers in marked cruisers also are getting cited, and police commanders are checking dispatch logs to make sure they were heading to a 911 call before voiding the ticket. If not, the money for the fine comes out of the cop's own pocket. Last year, two cops were suspended for putting stolen license plates on their unmarked cars (either to confuse drug dealers or avoid the cameras) and a police officer speeding at 71 mph was killed when his cruiser slammed into the back of a fire engine.
Driving by cops has always been a concern of city police, who have instituted crackdowns in past years. Police tell me that city officers got into 41 accidents in January, 21 of which were deemed the fault of officers. That's down from 56 in January of 2009 (again, 21 officers were at fault then as well).
And even in emergencies, city police are under more restrictive driving rules than officers in most other jurisdictions. State law requires that drivers of emergency vehicles slow at red lights and stop signs before going through, and that they drive no faster than prudent so as not to endanger lives.
In the city, cops are required to come to a full stop at red lights (and then they can go through) and can't drive faster than 10 mph over the speed limit. The speed cameras don't go off unless you're going at least 12 mph over the limit, so you could argue that the tickets should stand regardless of whether there's an emergency or not.
The president of the police union, Robert F. Cherry, had this to say: