COFFEE CITY, Texas (KETK) – One week after Coffee City deactivated their police department and fired their police chief, many drivers who’ve been pulled over say they want their speeding tickets dropped.
“I intended to come up here with the hopes of getting the ticket dismissed since they dismissed all of their policemen,” said Steve Prather, who was at city hall to contest a ticket.
Prather went into city hall with hopes to challenge his citation on Wednesday.
“I just paid them $315 to get a deferred adjudication,” said Prather.
Coffee City resident, Kolby Horton said he has $11,000 worth of tickets that he said were given unlawfully.
Horton said it caused him to plead guilty to each offense.
“I feel like I wouldn’t have won that battle because its me against a whole police department and they’re more than likely going to believe a whole police department before they believe me,” said Horton.
If you got a ticket from the Coffee City Police Department, the city secretary said you have to pay the ticket or choose to go to trial.
The secretary added, if the ticket is contested, the city will have to subpoena the original issuing officer to testify in court.
“How can they [have] a policemen being a witness that they’ve terminated or suspended or whatever you call it, what quality of a witness would that be,” said Prather.
Amid this grey area, people feel that they shouldn’t have to be punished.
“If they fired the cops that were in this town, and they gave me those tickets, how can you say those tickets are trustworthy,” said Horton.
This leaves people wondering if they should take this matter to court or pay and move on.
For now, it is business as usual when it comes to the tickets deadlines.
As far as emergency calls, Henderson County Sheriff, Botie Hillhouse said since Monday Sept. 11th, they have responded to 7 calls, which he said is not a lot of calls.
Smith County Sheriff Office will continue to handle incidents out of Coffee City until a new department is activated.