Image via Utah Division of Wildlife Resources/Facebook
Excuse our ignorance, but we thought game wardens or wildlife officers were supposed to be patrolling for people who are poaching, fishing without a license, etc. But a report out of Utah claims they’re instead targeting people for supposedly speeding on highways, with some who were cited stating they weren’t going nearly as fast as they were cited for.
Road rager shot in intense confrontation.
We’ve seen law enforcement step over its boundaries many times in the past and it’s always an enraging situation. But it’s even worse when you’re like one guy interviewed by Fox 13, claiming he had his cruise control set to just above 70 mph yet a game warden said he clocked him at 100 mph. The warden was “nice” and wrote him up for only 90 mph, giving the guy a big fat ticket to deal with instead of impounding his ride.
Others have similar stories, saying wildlife officers not only are pulling them over for supposedly speeding, which doesn’t seem to be their job, but also inflating their speeds so the ticket is bigger.
What’s really interesting is wildlife officers don’t have radar or laser speed detectors in their trucks. They’re using their own speedometer to guess how fast supposed violators are going. That seems a little sketchy.
Fox 13 claims it uncovered a policy for wildlife officers to cite someone for one violation of the law every 23 hours. While the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources claims there’s no quota, that policy sure sounds like one.
At least one wildlife officer spoke with Fox 13 and confirmed that’s what he and others are doing so they don’t get in trouble with their superiors. Reportedly, since 2021 traffic citations for the department have tripled. That sounds like a money making scheme.
We know some people refer to cops as “road pirates” because they feel they get pulled over and plundered by them periodically. In situations like this, we get why. If everything in this report is accurate, we think this scheme needs to be stopped immediately.
People deal with more than enough taxes these days, they don’t need to be stopped and hit with a ticket just because a cop has a quota.
Image via Utah Division of Wildlife Resources/Facebook
Watch the Fox 13 report on this problem here.
