“Cash register justice”: Florida town so corrupt that lawmakers want to abolish it

OFF THE WIRE
by PSUSA

"They make Boss Hogg look like a Sunday school teacher," says sheriff

This tiny Florida town has 477 residents, but it has almost 20 cops writing tickets nonstop. That's one cop for every 25 people. And even with huge cash flow, the city still runs at a deficit, and a mountain of cash has disappeared. The people are recognizing that the entire government is a parasitic entity and they are seeking to abolish it.

“It became ‘serve and collect’ instead of ‘serve and protect.’ Cash register justice,” said the sheriff. “Do y’all remember the old ‘Dukes of Hazzard’? Boss Hogg? They make Boss Hogg look like a Sunday school teacher.”
HAMPTON, FL — A tiny town in Florida has earned such a reputation for corruption that some are seeking to erase it completely from existence.  The town government apparently exists exclusively to extort money from drivers through traffic tickets and line the pockets of those politically connected.
What makes this situation different than what goes on regularly in towns and cities across America?  The answer, primarily, is that the town has done a notoriously poor job of convincing people that the government has any other abilities other than highway robbery.  The town is a notorious speed trap that has earned itself national recognition.
The town of Hampton only has a population of 477, yet it has an exceptionally large police force for its size — nearly 20 officers.  That’s a ratio of 1 ticket-writing cop to every 25 residents.
Those officers are preying on a stretch of highway that is only a quarter mile long, issuing 12,698 tickets between 2011 and 2012, according to the New York Times.
These fines raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet the town still managed to operate in a deficit.  In 2011 alone, the police department outspent its budget by $108,000 — around 68% of the original budget.  Police Chief John Hodges blamed vehicle maintenance and poor gas mileage on the police cars.

Hampton is nothing more than a blip on the map.  The 89-year-old town is landlocked and covers only 1.12 square miles.  After suffering financial struggles in the 1990s, city leaders pushed to annex a sliver of land which gave it access to a 1,260-foot stretch of U.S. Highway 301.
Hampton is nothing more than a blip on the map.  The 89-year-old town is landlocked and covers only 1.12 square miles.  After suffering financial struggles in the 1990s, city leaders pushed to annex a sliver of land which gave it access to a 1,260-foot stretch of U.S. Highway 301.

A map of Hampton, Florida, which covers just over 1 sq. mi.

The acquired land gave the town a new revenue stream and the corruption took off from there. As more money poured in, the department grew and money-snatching efforts intensified.  They even reduced the speed limit to create more speeders.
Officers were given slick new equipment, drove new SUVs, and other new weapons and gadgets.
Cops would routinely perform traffic stops while decked out in tactical regalia.  One cop was given the nickname “Rambo” because he would stop motorists with a AR-15 rifle, CNN reported.
An audit revealed that the large flow of cash stemmed into abundant corruption by city officials.  There has been abuse of city credit cards, abuse of city-owned vehicles, and disappearing cash.   Some estimate that $1 million has gone missing, while the town has little to show for its substantial collections.
The county sheriff recognized that the town was corrupt and cut Hampton’s access to county databases, radio communications, and the use of the county jail.
“It became ‘serve and collect’ instead of ‘serve and protect.’ Cash register justice,” said Sheriff Gordon Smith. “Do y’all remember the old ‘Dukes of Hazzard’? Boss Hogg? They make Boss Hogg look like a Sunday school teacher.”
When Hampton got a new mayor, Barry Moore, he was quickly imprisoned by the police force on a trumped up drug charge.   Moore told CNN that he was targeted for arrest “as part of a systematic way to tear the town of Hampton down.”

“It became ‘serve and collect’ instead of ‘serve and protect.’ Cash register justice.”

The Gainsville Sun reported that the Hampton police chief has been stingy with disclosing information about his staff — even to the Bradford County Sheriff.  The chief allegedly would only disclose the names of 4 officers and claimed that all of the others were working undercover or on special detail.  The sheriff suspects that the reason is that they do not actually have the proper credentials to work as police officers.
“It’s like something out of a Southern Gothic novel,” State Senator Rob Bradley told Time magazine. “This town exists apparently just to write speeding tickets. Most people don’t understand why it exists in the first place.”
“This situation went on for so long and the mismanagement was so deep, we have to seriously consider abolishing the government,” said Sen. Bradley.
The Declaration of Independence states that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
The corruption in Hampton seems to be so systemic that the people ought to exercise their right of abolition without further delay.  With the parasitic group of kleptocrats gone, the town may become a more hospitable place to live.

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