WEST BATON ROUGE PARISH — District 17 State Senator Caleb Kleinpeter is telling people not to pay tickets issued by the Ward 2 Constable’s Office in West Baton Rouge Parish, Kleinpeter told UWK in a phone call.
The current Ward 2 Constable is Ron Tetzel.
The Addis Police Department also posted a statement on Facebook about tickets from the Ward 2 Constable’s Office, explaining that the Addis and Bruly Police Departments do not issue those citations.
Most of those citations are being issued near Lukeville Elementary in West Baton Rouge Parish. Multiple Facebook posts on the platform and sent directly to UWK show a man with a tripod, hat, and safety vest tracking cars within the Lukeville Elementary School Zone.
Kleinpeter said he began looking into complaints about the citations at the end of October and reached out to Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, who told Kleinpeter to look into the newly passed Senate Bill 302, which allows drivers who receive tickets from an electronic speeding or red-light camera to appeal for a variety of reasons, including inclement weather or to claim that someone else was driving their car.
From how Kleinpeter interpreted the law, he told Tetzel and the Justice of the Peace that what they were doing was outside the parameters of the law. Kleinpeter said he told Tetzel that he felt he was breaking the law and then reached out to Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who said Kleinpeter was correct in his interpretation.
“She (Murrill) spoke with the Justice of the Peace and the Constable (Tetzel) and told them as well to stop. The problem was, within two weeks, they started writing tickets again,” Kleinpeter said.
As many as 5,000 citations were written, with around 4,000 of them having been processed, according to Kleinpeter.
“This is where a lot of people started getting tickets in the mail. And so 4,000 people got tickets; some people got multiple tickets. We even found out they were writing tickets on fall break whenever school wasn’t even in session,” Kleinpeter said.
Right now, Kleinpeter is asking people not to pay the tickets and said he is working with Murrill’s office to figure out how to reimburse people who may have already paid them.
“I’m a huge supporter of law enforcement but this is nothing but a money grab. Nothing was being accomplished by this, like if you had an impaired driver or a kid unrestrained, any kind of reckless situation, they couldn’t have done anything because they didn’t have a vehicle. They were out there on foot, hiding behind signs, hiding behind metal boxes to where they weren’t even able to pull people over. So what good was that?” Kleinpeter asked.
Kleinpeter also contacted the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office to find out if there were any issues with that specific area and said Sheriff Jeff Bergeron told him they hadn’t received complaints about speeders or people running red lights near the school. Kleinpeter then asked if Bergeron would be ok with removing the one school zone sign that was on the highway near the school and Bergeron said he was ok with it.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development also told Kleinpeter that there shouldn’t be a school zone sign on the highway and that were in the process of removing it.
“They have gates around their whole school now. They have a service road that will still have the school zone sign on the service road. We’re not eliminating that but there’s no reason to have a school zone (there) and even try to enforce it,” Kleinpeter explained.
Tetzel was also asked by Kleinpeter where he intended to attempt to hear these civil penalties in court because Addis Mayor, David Toups, told Kleinpeter that he was not going to hear the civil penalties made by Tetzel in his court.
“He (Tetzel) said, ‘no we have our own place.’ And I said, ‘where is that at?’ ‘He said ‘In Sugar Mill storage facility.’
“I said ‘so is there an appeal process?’ He said ‘no, I don’t think so.’ I said ‘you’re going to use a criminal offense to impose a civil fine but I’m not going to be able to appeal it in an actual criminal court,’” Kleinpeter said about his phone call with Tetzel.
This is a developing story. As soon as more details are provided, the story will be updated. Check back for new information.
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