DPS throws out more than 65 percent of the photos captured

Motorists activated photo-enforcement cameras on Arizona highways more than 471,000 times from December through February but on average, only about one-third of those drivers received tickets from the state Department of Public Safety.

An analysis by The Arizona Republic of three months of records shows Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. and the DPS threw out more than 65 percent of the photos captured.

The reasons for rejecting tickets vary but are relatively uncomplicated: Sun glare, dirty windshields and traffic rank as top causes.

Redflex, a Scottsdale-based company that operates Arizona's statewide system, has a goal of issuing tickets 80 percent of the time the cameras are activated, DPS Lt. Jeff King said.

A Redflex spokeswoman clarified by saying that figure applies only to photos that aren't compromised by factors such as the weather.

King wouldn't characterize the DPS' position on the number of activations and the percentage of tickets issued but said the agency is pleased with photo enforcement's impact on public safety.

Arizona has a driver-responsibility law that means DPS officers have to match the photo of the speeder with one on a driver's license.

Authorities issue notices of violation to owners when a speed camera captures a clear picture of a license plate and a driver. But the vehicle's owner may deny being the driver. If authorities can't then match the camera image to a driver's-license photo, they can't issue a ticket.

Redflex officials would not discuss the technology that operates the photo enforcement system, but the cameras have high-powered lenses, King said.

Legislators approved the statewide program in July, giving the DPS a mandate to install 100 fixed and mobile cameras on Arizona highways. The DPS suspended the program's expansion in mid-January, with 36 fixed locations and 42 mobile units in place.

The suspension coincided with a wave of anti-photo-enforcement efforts that included residents' protests and legislative efforts to end the program, but DPS officials insist they suspended the program to seek the best locations for the remaining cameras.

The most recent data from the DPS shows cameras snapped motorists more than 1 million times on Arizona highways during the program's first seven months. More than 80,000 drivers have paid the fines.

Arizona has collected nearly $12 million through the process, with more than $1.3 million going to Redflex, according to terms of the contract.

King and other DPS officials cite statistics that show traffic fatalities have dropped dramatically in areas where photo-enforcement cameras are stationed.

A Valley pastor tasered during traffic stop

A Valley pastor has posted a video on Youtube.com showing him getting tasered and forcefully removed from his car by DPS officers.

It happened on April 14th during a routine Border Patrol traffic stop about 60 miles north of the U.S/Mexican border.

Steve Anderson had his personal camcorder rolling when officers ordered him out of his vehicle after a canine provided probable cause for the agents to conduct a secondary search. Anderson refused to get out.

That's when authorities busted his car window and deployed the taser. The camera dropped to the floor and all you could see was blackness with sounds of Anderson screaming in pain.

"They're just torturing me with these tasers again and again," Anderson said. They're stepping on my head� They're shoving my face in broken glass for no reason. I wasn't resisting them. I wasn't fighting back. I was limp�just begging for mercy."

The Baptist pastor was arrested and charged with resisting an order and obstructing a highway. When the agents and officers searched his car, they found nothing.

"Nothing, because all I had was tools," said Anderson. "I didn't have any drugs. I didn't have a human body in my car."

DPS says the case is underway and they have no comment at this time.

Woman kills self after short police chase in Tempe

A young woman shot and killed herself Friday after a short police chase in Tempe.

According to Lt. James Warriner, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety, officers got a call from Mesa police to try and find a suicidal person at 3:10 a.m.

Warriner said a DPS officer spotted the car with the woman, who is about 24 years old, inside a car parked in front of a home near Elliot Road and Interstate 10.

The officer sat behind the woman while he waited for other officers to arrive, but she drove away.

She refused to stop for the officer and sped away before pulling into a parking space in front of a convenience store at Priest Drive and Warner Road.

“As the officer stepped out of the vehicle he heard a gunshot,” Warriner said.

Katie McDevitt, Tempe police spokeswoman, said Tempe police will investigate the suicide. Warriner said DPS will conduct an investigation of the officer’s actions, which is routine in significant incidents.

508 pounds of pot found in watermelon hauling truck

A truck driver was arrested after marijuana was found in his load of watermelons.

On Tuesday at 12:45 a.m., an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer stopped a commercial vehicle traveling northbound on Interstate 17 near New River for a traffic violation and inspection.

The driver had picked up a load of watermelons in Nogales, Ariz., and was headed to Massachusetts. After obtaining consent to search the vehicle, another DPS officer discovered plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana in three bins toward the front of the trailer. The total amount seized was 508 pounds.

Anthony Moyd, 39, Newark, N.J., was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana for sale, transportation of marijuana for sale and operating an illegal enterprise.

Be back on the look out for DPS speed vans back on highways

Department of Public Safety spokesman Jim Warriner said Tuesday that the vans began being phased back onto roadways after a van operator was killed last month.

Speed-enforcement vans are back on Arizona highways for the first time following the killing of a van operator last month.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Jim Warriner said Tuesday that the vans began being phased back onto roadways Monday.

He says he does not know how many vans are out snapping the photos of speeders or when all of them will be up and running again.

Warriner declined to say whether people were inside the vans, citing safety issues. He said only that ``the technology is out there that has allowed us to move forward.''

He added that DPS is comfortable that van operators will be protected.

Sixty-eight-year-old Thomas Patrick Destories is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Doug Georgianni, who was operating a speed-enforcement van on a Phoenix freeway when he was killed.
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Thomas Patrick Destories















Doug Georgianni

Pearce: We need Natl Guard, DPS on border now!

State Sen. Russell Pearce says the swine flu is just another reason in a long list of reasons for sealing Arizona's border with Mexico.

The sine flu scare "certainly was an opportunity to secure that border and evaluate who's coming and who's not coming," the Mesa Republican told News/Talk 92-3 KTAR's Jay Lawrence Show. "We have an obligation to our citizens to secure that border."

Pearce said action was justified long before people became concerned about a deadly outbreak of the swine flu, since renamed H1N1, in Mexico City.

"You've got drugs coming across there, you've got other things coming across there," he said. "We make a big deal out of the swine flu. And maybe it is a big deal, although we have health officials now saying it's no different than any other flu. This isn't the first thing we've had. We have an epidemic of crime coming across that border."

Pearce said Gov. Jan Brewer has authority to act and she should.

"This governor's the commander-in-chief. Send the guard down there today. Put DPS (the Department of Public Safety) down there today. You want lower taxes, you want less crime, you want less disease, you want jobs protected for Americans in a time when Americans can't find work."

Former Gov. Janet Napolitano, now the secretary of Homeland Security, said, from the start of the swine flu scare, that closing the borders was not an option.

"It actually would have distracted us from the steps we did need to take to protect the American people," Napolitano said. "And that was focusing on what we could do to contain the virus that was already within our borders."

Souns like good advice from Pearce.

Statewide Photo Radar Program Begins Friday

The Department of Public Safety will add 100 mobile and fixed cameras across the state.

A state official's decision Tuesday to let a contract award take effect means Arizona will launch its groundbreaking photo speed enforcement program on Friday, the Department of Public Safety said.

"We're going to be ready come Friday with some sort of photo enforcement,'' said Lt. James Warriner, a DPS spokesman.

The contract with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. provides for 100 mobile and fixed cameras to be deployed statewide. Arizona's program would be the first such statewide deployment by a U.S. state though similar programs are used in other countries.

The DPS' contract with Redflex had been put on hold because of a challenge by competitor American Traffic Solutions Inc., but Department of Administration Director William Bell vacated the stay.

Bell said the state law authorizing the photo enforcement program clearly states that the program is in the state's public policy interests.

ATS' challenge remains pending, and it wasn't immediately known when the company would go to court to try to block implementation of the contract.

"We've just received the DOA document on the stay and we have several days to respond,'' said ATS spokesman Josh Weiss. "We're keeping all of our options open.''

Friday is the effective date of the budget law that was approved by lawmakers on June 26 and signed into law by Gov. Janet Napolitano on June 27.

Citing public safety benefits demonstrated by cameras deployed by Scottsdale on a state freeway, Napolitano in 2007 directed DPS to develop a photo speed enforcement program.

Lawmakers balked but she won authorization for the program in the current state budget approved in June. She included a projected $90 million in new state revenue from citations.

Though the contract challenge and stay delayed preparations for the program's launch, "we're going to try and do exactly what we were asked to do by the Legislature and the governor,'' Warriner said.

DPS will deploy some mobile units starting Friday but it will take longer to put fixed cameras in operation because DPS is still awaiting information from the Department of Transportation on suitable sites, he said.

The statewide program dramatically expands a two-vehicle pilot program already under way, also run by Redflex.

Redflex asked Bell to lift the stay, and DPS urged him to do so. The agency argued that launching the program was important to public health and safety because photo enforcement would reduce crashes on Arizona highways, let Highway Patrol officers focus on apprehending drunk drivers and improve safety for highway workers.

ATS argued that lifting the stay would allow Redflex to unfairly oppose the contract challenge on grounds that the program was already under way.

However, with a retroactivity clause in the law and wording that overrides any laws that conflict, "it is difficult to imagine a more emphatic statement by the Legislature that it considered the photo enforcement project necessary for the health and safety of the public of Arizona,'' Bell wrote.

Van full of illegals involved in wreck on U.S. 60, Arizona

There was a heavy police presence on the westbound on ramps of U.S. 60 near McClintock starting around 8 a.m. today.

According to the Department of Public Safety, a van carrying as many as 15 illeagal immigrants was involved in some kind of car wreck.

Some people sustained minor injuries. There's no word if anybody was taken to the hospital as of yet.

The van was the only vehicle still on the scene, so investigators believe this might be a hit-and-run type situation.

This is a sad, almost everyday occurance in Arizona now