November 6, 2014
By Victims of Judge Gardner
(Grand
Rapids, Michigan November 6, 2014) In April, Deanna Kloostra
was ticketed for disobeying a stop sign. The ticket was written by a Grand
Rapids Police officer. Deanna believes that she stopped for the stop sign, but
stopped further back than the norm. Deanna says that the car she drives tends
to slide on water. With ice on the roads, Deanna makes sure she stops several
feet before the stop sign so she does not slide out in the middle of an
intersection. “The first sign of sprinkles and the car will slide. Just imagine
how the car drives on icy slick roads.
When the officer suddenly flips on his flasher and does a U-Turn in the
road, coming straight at the middle of my car, I thought there was an emergency.
I pulled to the side of the road as fast as possible and stopped. Imagine my
surprise that the emergency was to give me a ticket at 6:30 in the
morning."
When the police officer pulled up he turned on several
lights that made Deanna put her hands up over her eyes to top the lights from glaring
off her windows and mirrors. “The car was lit up like a drug raids was being
performed,” says Deanna. The officer only asked for her license and took a long
time returning back to the car to issue the ticket. Deanna says, "The
first thing I did was lock my doors and when he went back to his car, I texted
a friend that I had been pulled over by GRPD. I was beginning to wonder if the
officer was going to give me a breathalyzer test early in the morning to see if
I had been drinking, it took him so long to return back to issue the ticket"
Deanna is very leery of any government agency or their employees because she
has dirt on a lot of them.
Three citizens given tickets by the officer showed up
at the 61st District Court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to fight the violations.
They were allowed to leave by the judge because the police officer did not show
in a timely manner. Now most people believe that ticket is dismissed, but not
in this case. The officer says he was coping CD’s of the traffic stops to bring
to court, so the citizens were requested back in court. Two citizens appear in
front of a different judge, and the police officer appeared with his city of
Grand Rapids attorney. The Judge asked if the parties had a chance to discuss
the ticket and come to any sort of agreement. The city attorney stated there
would not be any agreement. (The attorney never met with Deanna to discuss the
ticket at any point in time. The other citizen who appeared went into a private
room with another city attorney and settled.) When Deanna spoke she talked
about the fact that the last time she was in court, there was the judge, court
employees, and the three citizens given a tickets. Deanna mentions that there
was not a city attorney present for the officer. At that point, Deanna says, the
Judge asked the city attorney if she was to get an informal hearing. The city attorney
had no idea. Deanna says, "It was amazing! An attorney paid for by Grand
Rapids has no clue what the law is, and a judge asking an attorney what the law
is, right in my presence. I was just amazed. My thoughts were the 17Th Circuit
Court and now the 61st District Court."
So off she went to prepare for her hearing and do some
research. Deanna and another citizen pulled over by the officer state that the
officer leans behind the door, where it is hard to see the officer, with his hand
is on his gun. Just weeks prior, Deanna was stopped by a police officer on
Plainfield Avenue. She was in the left lane and her car would not go over
40mph. While checking her gauges on the car, she was pulled over by a police
officer. When she pulled over she noticed her shifter had been knocked out of
gear. She says that traffic stop seamed normal, and the traffic stop in this
article was really different. Deanna believes something seems a little off with
this police officer. Deanna was wondering if the police officer had Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). While doing research, Deanna discovered that
police in general have a high rate of PTSD, and that the issues are not being
addressed in law enforcement agencies. Deanna wanted to bring up this fact in
court and to make sure Grand Rapids has a mentally safe police officer
patrolling our streets. She also learned of another incident where a police
officer in Grand Rapids did a U-Turn and caused an accident off Kalamazoo
Avenue, just weeks after Deanna was pulled over.
Deanna’s ticket cost $135. Lets’ take a look at where
that money went to. The fine of $35 went
to the municipality or the city of Grand Rapids. Citing officers will write up
a civil infraction under the local ordinance, rather than the state statue
because both the civil fine and the cost go to support the municipality, rather
than the libraries. Yes, civil fines are to fund the libraries. The cost of $60 are payable to the
plaintiff’s general fund. The state cost
of $40 is deposited into the state treasury’s justice system fund. Does anyone
remember the video Deanna did in 2011 about the indigent citizens in criminal
court not receiving proper services? The Justice Fund was
part of the money that was taken to help create a board to make changes to
indigent citizens receiving proper services. We got some information that the
services have not changed any in Kent County and public defenders are still
showing up five minutes before court to talk with their clients. We will save
that for another story in the future.
Deanna filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request information about the police officer. All of her request were denied,
accept her viewing the video of the traffic stop. Apparently they could not
find any information of the police officer causing an accident when doing a
U-Turn on Kalamazoo Avenue either. At this point she realized that the officer
had the entire city of Grand Rapids employees on his side. She realized that in
order to get the information she needed to "beat the ticket" she was
going to have to subpoena the police officer's boss, police records, the HR staff,
etc. The police officer could have a video made by a coworker very easily. She
realized that the money that would be spent by Grand Rapids would be in the
thousands, just for her to fight the ticket. All the city employees involved
would be paid and in the end she would end up paying the ticket anyway and
wasted a lot of time.
"Think about it, Deanna says. The police officer
will be getting paid. The attorney, who I already know has no clue about the
law, will be getting paid. Then, the city employees I subpoena into court will
be getting paid. This adds up to a lot of time and money for a $135. The city
has the money at their disposal and the ability to draw this hearing out for
months. I decided I had better things to do then deal with a bunch more of our
government officials who have no clue what they are doing. Let’s just hope the
officer does not have PTSD or causes accidents while doing U-Turns. The
citizens of Grand Rapids will be the ones who pay millions for it later, and
some citizens will pay with their life."
The story doesn’t end here. Deanna then receives a
letter from the Michigan Department of State saying that she can participate in
a Basic Drivers Improvement Course (BDIC). If she took this course for under
$100, the letter states, “any points stemming from the violations are not
placed on their record. In addition the violations and points (if any) will not
be disclosed to their insurance company.” To learn more go to www.Michigan.gov/BDIC. We did looking
for where the funding goes and the cost of the services. The cost ranges around
$35 and we called one service to obtain information. They would not give us any
information on funding etc…. so we called Stedman Insurance Agency Inc. to get
information. We were given directly to Mr. Stedman, who was more than happy to
answer any questions says, keep that certificate. Without that certificate, you
will be charged. Mr. Stedman says the points do come up on the computer and
they are aware of them. Also, there is only so many times you can take the
course, so make sure you are using your chances wisely. We had a hard time
finding out more on where the funding goes and the wait times for the Secretary
of State were way to long. We encourage our readers to look more into the
subject. If you write a press release, we will help distribute it.
While this traffic ticket situation was going on,
Deanna was in the 17th Circuit court once again. This time she was
fighting a bill from 2004 she didn’t know she had and for nine years never
received a bill. Judge Daniel Zemaitis admits the court is partially at fault.
Deanna is making her $20 monthly payments and get this. The payments are coming
back because the court clerk does not know what to do with the money. We are
shaking our heads too. You can read the press release at http://victimsofjudgegardner.blogspot.com/
We asked Deanna what she is up to next. All she would
say is it has to do with the Federal courts.
###
No comments:
Post a Comment