Arlington Police Chief Rescinds 'Quota' Memo

Arlington Police Chief Doug Scott on Tuesday rescinded officers were expected to make or else face disciplinary action.

Scott said the memo "created confusion" among residents and officers about whether the Arlington department had a quota system. He called the memo, which he said he first saw Monday, "a mistake," and said his officers were "embarrassed" that the story had gotten so much attention.

"There is no month-to-month or day-to-day numeric quota system for our officers. And I want to be emphatic about that," Scott said.

"I do feel that most employers have performance expectations for their employees. I would expect that your producers have expectations about stories that you do. And I do believe that the public realizes that it's reasonable for us to have performance expectations for our officers. However, citing specific squad averages, benchmarks or targets leads to confusion about quotas. The mere suggestion of a quota system in a police department damages or sullies the professional reputation of the agency, and I take that very seriously. We take great pride here in Arlington in our professional reputation. And we have great support from the community."

Scott said he has been a police chief for almost 15 years in three different departments and has never disciplined an officer for not meeting a specific numeric requirement of arrests or citations.

Such numbers put "unreasonable expectations" on officers, Scott said. However, he said, the numbers cited in the memo "shouldn't be hard to hit" for the average officer working regular shifts.

"If an officer is underperforming consistently, that needs to be addressed. The public expects them to go out and do their job," he said.

"We do expect officers to go out there and have something to show for their daily activity."

Police commanders are "very careful" not to step on an officer's individual discretion when it comes to issuing verbal or written warnings or actual citations, Scott said.

Scott said he held a news conference Tuesday morning to try to prevent any further or lasting damage to his department's reputation.

"Our reputation is strong enough that hopefully this will be kind of a blip in terms of the reputation of our professional agency. The public, based on my interaction with them, have a lot of trust and a lot of faith in our department. It's a very professional department, and our officers themselves are very professional," Scott told Patch in a phone interview.

"When it goes to public trust and professional reputation, I consider those things very important, and it's certainly part of my job to stand up and address the issues."