This Town Filled Its Coffers With a Traffic Shakedown Scheme – Now They Are Paying the Price

The tiny town of Brookside, Alabama, agreed to a $1.5 million federal class-action settlement after its police force was caught red-handed running a mafia-esque shakedown operation that involved bogus traffic stops and aggressive towing to line the local government’s coffers.

Brookside will pay $1 million to those whose cars were unfairly towed and $500,000 to those charged in its municipal court between 2018 and 2022, according to ABC 33/40. It will also have to accept limits on how it can make money from tickets and towing going forward.

Here’s how the scheme worked. Investigations showed that the town, with a population of a little over 1,000 and no traffic lights, turned traffic enforcement into its primary business model. Between 2018 and 2020, revenue coming from fines, fees, and forfeitures surged more than 640 percent. Eventually, it made up roughly half of the entire town’s budget.

Town leaders expanded the police force from one officer to nine and used the officers to essentially engage in policing for profit. They packed the municipal court so full of victims on traffic-court days that officers had to direct traffic in the parking lot.

Officers carried out the scheme by stopping motorists on flimsy or completely false pretexts, stacking charges, and then towing their vehicles so that unwitting victims would have to pay hundreds of dollars to regain their property, according to the Institute for Justice, which represented the victims in the lawsuit.

Police pulled over Brittany Coleman and handcuffed her for about 30 minutes. They searched her car for marijuana and found nothing. She passed three field sobriety tests. Yet, they still charged her with marijuana possession and towed her car anyway. The offenses were so egregious that a judge denied the officers qualified immunity.

Brookside would charge a flat $175 “vehicle retrieval fee” in addition to court fines. Arrests in the town skyrocketed by 1,100 percent in just two years as police aggressively searched for people to ticket and rob. 

Eventually, the victims turned to the Institute for Justice to file a federal class-action lawsuit in 2022. They argued that the department’s practices violated the 14th Amendment’s due-process guarantee. In fact, the conduct was so ridiculous that the U.S. Department of Justice got involved, filing a Statement of Interest in support of the plaintiffs.

The settlement not only grants $1.5 million to affected motorists but also permanently repeals Brookside’s towing retrieval fee. It also bans its officers from patrolling Interstate 22 for ten years, unless there is an emergency and places a cap on how much of its future budget can come from policing and code enforcement for the next three decades.

This isn’t an isolated case. It’s part of a broader pattern in which small-town governments use fines and fees rather than taxes to rake in the dough. The nearby town of Castleberry was also caught using speed traps and aggressive traffic enforcement actions to get a payday.

This story is rare in that it has a happy ending. The town’s leadership was held accountable for a blatant scheme using the power of government to rob people of their property and hard-earned cash. It shows how some police departments run their operations in sa imilar fashion to La Cosa Nostra because they believe they are untouchable.

In Brookside’s case, the leadership didn’t get away with it. But other municipalities can engage in this conduct with impunity as long as the people are unwilling to fight back.

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

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The tiny town of Brookside, Alabama, agreed to a $1.5 million federal class-action settlement after its police force was caught red-handed running a mafia-esque shakedown operation that involved bogus traffic stops and aggressive towing to line the local government’s coffers.

Brookside will pay $1 million to those whose cars were unfairly towed and $500,000 to those charged in its municipal court between 2018 and 2022, according to ABC 33/40. It will also have to accept limits on how it can make money from tickets and towing going forward.

Here’s how the scheme worked. Investigations showed that the town, with a population of a little over 1,000 and no traffic lights, turned traffic enforcement into its primary business model. Between 2018 and 2020, revenue coming from fines, fees, and forfeitures surged more than 640 percent. Eventually, it made up roughly half of the entire town’s budget.

Town leaders expanded the police force from one officer to nine and used the officers to essentially engage in policing for profit. They packed the municipal court so full of victims on traffic-court days that officers had to direct traffic in the parking lot.

Officers carried out the scheme by stopping motorists on flimsy or completely false pretexts, stacking charges, and then towing their vehicles so that unwitting victims would have to pay hundreds of dollars to regain their property, according to the Institute for Justice, which represented the victims in the lawsuit.

Police pulled over Brittany Coleman and handcuffed her for about 30 minutes. They searched her car for marijuana and found nothing. She passed three field sobriety tests. Yet, they still charged her with marijuana possession and towed her car anyway. The offenses were so egregious that a judge denied the officers qualified immunity.

Brookside would charge a flat $175 “vehicle retrieval fee” in addition to court fines. Arrests in the town skyrocketed by 1,100 percent in just two years as police aggressively searched for people to ticket and rob. 

Eventually, the victims turned to the Institute for Justice to file a federal class-action lawsuit in 2022. They argued that the department’s practices violated the 14th Amendment’s due-process guarantee. In fact, the conduct was so ridiculous that the U.S. Department of Justice got involved, filing a Statement of Interest in support of the plaintiffs.

The settlement not only grants $1.5 million to affected motorists but also permanently repeals Brookside’s towing retrieval fee. It also bans its officers from patrolling Interstate 22 for ten years, unless there is an emergency and places a cap on how much of its future budget can come from policing and code enforcement for the next three decades.

This isn’t an isolated case. It’s part of a broader pattern in which small-town governments use fines and fees rather than taxes to rake in the dough. The nearby town of Castleberry was also caught using speed traps and aggressive traffic enforcement actions to get a payday.

This story is rare in that it has a happy ending. The town’s leadership was held accountable for a blatant scheme using the power of government to rob people of their property and hard-earned cash. It shows how some police departments run their operations in sa imilar fashion to La Cosa Nostra because they believe they are untouchable.

In Brookside’s case, the leadership didn’t get away with it. But other municipalities can engage in this conduct with impunity as long as the people are unwilling to fight back.

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.