La Crosse Police were the only department in Wisconsin using this ‘unusual practice.’ And it cost taxpayers.

After paying $450,000 to a man involved in a police confrontation, the department ceased using traffic stops to issue unrelated citations.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

Back in 2020, Demond Harris had outstanding citations for reckless driving and disorderly conduct. An alleged road rage incident led to La Crosse police writing the tickets against Harris after he had departed the scene.

When an officer went to his residence to issue the citations, Harris refused to answer the door.

Rather than mail the tickets, Officer Graham Eddy, the brother of the cop who first tried to issue them at his residence, pulled Harris over three days later to give him the citations.

During the stop, Eddy said he smelled marijuana in the vehicle, which Harris denied having. Eddy and other officers at the scene said Harris resisted their attempts to arrest him, leading to them jolting him with a stun gun and pinning him to the ground. A search of his car and a strip search of his body found no marijuana.

Most of the charges and citations from both incidents were eventually dropped, though Harris agreed to pay a fine on the disorderly conduct citation from the first incident, his attorney Lisa Goldman said.

In 2023, Harris filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the officers, contending that they violated his 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Last year, Chief U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson found that while the initial traffic stop was lawful, the officers used excessive force in detaining him.

After pretrial negotiations, the city agreed to pay Harris a settlement of $450,000, which includes his attorney fees, Goldman said. Harris got the check in March.

In his written opinion, the judge expressed confusion at the police department’s policy that led to the six-figure settlement.

“For some reason, La Crosse is the only city in Wisconsin that delivers municipal citations with police traffic stops, instead of just mailing the citations like other Wisconsin cities,” he wrote. “This practice increases the number of traffic stops, leading to avoidable confrontations between citizens and police officers, as this case illustrates.”

“The whole episode could have been avoided if the La Crosse Police Department had simply mailed the citations to him,” Peterson added.

The department “should reconsider its unusual practice,” the judge concluded.

It has done exactly that, La Crosse Police Captain Avrie Schott told The Badger Project in an email. The department ended the practice in April.

Prior to this change, “conducting a traffic stop solely to serve a municipal citation was a practice that was used very rarely,” Schott noted.

Patrick Solar, an associate professor of criminal justice at UW-Platteville and a former police chief, was also critical of that practice.

“That’s a poor policy,” he said, “and this is what it leads to.”

Instead, Solar advocated for a more direct and traditional approach to policing in this incident.

To protect themselves and taxpayers from a lawsuit, the officers should have obtained a warrant, Solar said. If the defendant refused to open the door to receive his citations, police could have legally entered his home – by force, if necessary – issued the citations and arrested him. That approach also would allow officers to search the residence for incriminating evidence, Solar continued.

Schott said the police department “strives to avoid the need to have arrest warrants issued for municipal citations whenever possible.”

Regarding the settlement, the La Crosse City Council approved payment, and the city paid a little more than $90,000 of the $450,000, city spokeswoman Kristen Schadeberg said. The city’s insurance carrier covered the rest, she said.

Harris, the federal judge said, isn’t “blameless.”

“He obstinately refused Eddy’s lawful orders to get out of his car, and he physically resisted the officer’s efforts to arrest him,” Peterson wrote. “But his frustration is understandable. He wasn’t carrying any drugs, and the whole episode could have been avoided if the La Crosse Police Department had simply mailed the citations to him. As any police officer knows, every traffic stop creates a risk of harm for the officer and the driver.”

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.