Motorists illegally detained at Florida tolls - for using large bills!
(Boy, that's a loud headline!)
Motorists illegally detained at Florida tolls - for using large bills! | Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota | WTSP.com 10 News
From the article:
Chandler says this is a serious criminal offense, to detain someone without proper legal authority. He says that is exactly what the department is doing. When Chandler called and e-mailed the Florida Department of Transportation to complain about the policy, he was told there is no policy to detain people who give large bills. He says that made him more concerned, because that meant there were individual rogue toll takers detaining people.
The practice continued at toll booth after toll booth and, if someone refused to provide the information, they were threatened with arrest. One toll taker told Chandler's brother Robert, "I could call FHP. Would you like me to do that, sir?" Robert Chandler asked why she would call the Florida Highway Patrol when he was being illegally detained and the toll taker said he could come up with another form of tender.
Chandler continued to complain and on July 21st at 7:19 p.m., he received an email from the assistant General Counsel of FDOT saying essentially the department didn't know what he was talking about and they don't have sufficient information to investigate. However, earlier that same day, there were a flurry of e-mails going back and forth in the department saying shut the program down, temporarily suspend it and who should call Chandler and what should they say.
According to Chandler, not only was the D.O.T. not being truthful about the policy existing, but he also says they made a concerted effort to cover it up.
One reason the department might not have wanted the public to know about the program is because of whom was being detained.
Chandler says he thinks it clear from their own documents there was a lot of racial profiling going on.
And when you look at the documents from the Florida Department of Transportation you see there was a policy change about detaining people who gave a 20 dollar bill. The Department decided to leave it up to the discretion of the toll takers to decide who was suspicious. The courts have ruled that is unconstitutional, because it allows the preferences and prejudices of an individual to make the decision.
Chandler says 87 percent of the times toll takers took the time to fill out the form as to why they stopped someone. It was a racial description like, young black male, young black male, young Hispanic male.
