OVERLAND PARK — Authorities say three suburban Kansas City police officers have resigned and more than 200 traffic tickets dismissed after an internal investigation into false seat belt citations.
The Kansas City Star reports that Overland Park, Kansas, police Chief Frank Donchez Jr. says the officers overlooked traffic violations like speeding and instead cited motorists for not wearing seat belts when they’d actually been buckled up. He says he doesn’t know what motivated the officers, suggesting that perhaps they were “cutting someone a break.”
He says the officers turned off their dash camera audio, possibly to hide their actions.
Not all of the 200 citations were false. But Donchez says all of the seat belt tickets by those officers have been dismissed. Some $4,000 has been refunded to motorists who had already paid.
