Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 8, 2012

To his eternal credit, Corporal Clayton Alford of Maryland?s Riverdale Park Police Department refuses to be party to a lucrative fraud.

Marylandstate law permits municipalities to carry out the patently unconstitutional practice of traffic photo enforcement as long as a citation is accompanied by a signed statement from a law enforcement officer. While Alford was on vacation in February and April of 2010, two officials who are not police officers logged into the system under Alford?s name in order to issue citations. They disclosed their actions in e-mails to a representative of Optotraffic, the corrupt contractor that operates the profitable photo enforcement scam inPrince George?s County.

Corporal Alford?s testimony is a centerpiece of a class-action lawsuit against Optotraffic, which seeks to dismiss every photo ticket issued inRiverdaleParksince 2010. That racket raked in nearly $2 million last year.

One measure of the incurable corruption of that program was offered by District Judge Jean Barron, who will not permit traffic enforcement defendants to assert their innocence in his courtroom. On one occasion, Barron cited a defendant for contempt merely for insisting that he wasn?t speeding.

Corporal Alford?s honesty is rare and commendable, and it will almost certainly cost him his job.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.