Published: November 04, 2009 09:31 am      

Mayor: Our ticket ratio is not crazy

Tuttle residents are up in arms after two school employees contacted a television station to complain about traffic tickets.

News Channel 4 recently ran a story about an officer issuing an excessive number of traffic citations in Tuttle, even sending a crew to the Tuttle Elementary School to interview employees.

The station later recanted its story after speaking with Tuttle Mayor Bobby Williams, and apologized to the police officer, Willliams. The station also apologized after learning that the newscaster who covered the bogus story was the daughter of one of the school employees who received a traffic ticket.

“This should not have happened at an elementary school. If Superintendent Lee Coker had known about it, he would not have allowed it. It is not the time or place,” said Williams. “This isn’t teaching our kids anything and it was bad judgment on the part of the elementary school principal to have let it happen. We don’t need to teach our children that this is the way to handle a situation.”

Tuttle School Superintendent Lee Coker said, “I think we would have made other arrangements, but it happened and we can’t change that. We needed to take steps to ensure nothing like this will happen in the future, and I’ve done that.”

The television story alleged that a Tuttle police officer had single-handedly written more than 300 traffic tickets within a one-month period.

“None of the tickets have been out of line,” said Tuttle Police Chief Don Cluck. “We had one officer training a new officer and the best way to learn is to do. He issued 83 citations and 56 warnings in a one-month period and we had a total of 157 citations and 197 warnings. We wrote more warnings than tickets.”

Cluck said the city is up a little from last month on traffic citations because it has been short two police officers since two officers left Tuttle to go to other agencies.

“We have not been making any big push on traffic citations,” Cluck said. “Some complain that we aren’t doing enough according to a recent city survey.”

Cluck said he has two new officers, one who is currently in training and another who is scheduled to attend the police academy in January, 2010.

In addition, two traffic counters have been installed on Cimarron Road and Sara Road in areas with speed limits ranging from 25 mph to 45 mph.

“The average speed is 60 mph,” Cluck said. “We probably will be stepping that up just to try to keep people safe.”

Williams said the news story attempted to insinuate that Tuttle is a dying town with little traffic.

“They tried to make Tuttle sound like a speed-trap town,” Williams said. “ODOT put a counter on Hwy. 4 that shows more than 9,000 cars a day go down Hwy. 4, and that’s just one road. Our ticket ratio is not crazy by any means.”

Williams said he has viewed videos of both of the school employee’s traffic stops.

“I watched the videos and the officer was warranted in issuing a ticket,” Williams said. “This is an embarrassment to Tuttle and to the elementary school; they had no right to do what they did. Any time a child needs help, he should never in any way fear a police officer.”