CONWAY — Faulkner County’s former road officer issued just seven tickets in his four years on the job before he was fired earlier this month, records show.
Former officer Jason Bell ticketed seven people, all in 2009 and 2010, according to records released by the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Karl Byrd, who commissioned Bell as thecounty’s only road-enforcement police officer in 2008, said Monday that Bell’s main job was supposed to have been enforcing truck weight limits on county roads.
But Byrd said, “It is my understanding that none of those tickets were issued for overweight violations.”
“I believe that the position was misused,” Byrd said in an earlier interview. “There has not been a need [for the position], or theyhave not” responded to the need properly.
“I’m sure that there were trucks out there that had a weight problem,” Byrd added. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
County Judge Preston Scroggin fired Bell, effective Sept. 17, after Byrd decommissioned Bell days earlier. Byrd cited domestic-abuse allegations against Bell and the county’s purchase of five guns, including two AR-15-style rifles, and a stockpile of ammunition for Bell.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been investigating the purchase of several guns, including those.
In terminating Bell, the county’s only road police officer, Scroggin cited the decommission, not the issues Byrd mentioned. Bell has not been charged with a crime.
Byrd said Bell was supposed to “be weighing trucks on county roads and trying to enforce weight limits on roads that were not constructed to be carrying that [heavy] weight.”
Scroggin, who was Bell’s immediate supervisor, and Bell did not reply to requests for comment. County Administrator Jeff Johnston said Scroggin did not want to talk.
Johnston, however, said hewasn’t surprised that Bell issued so few tickets because Johnston said Bell’s job was meant to be a preventative one.
Johnston said Bell would take his scales and weigh the trucks from the private property of businesses such as natural-gas companies. That way, Johnston said, the drivers knew before they got on the roads if the vehicles were too heavy and could reduce their load if necessary.
“You want to promote business,” Johnston said. “Sitting here waiting on them to commit a crime when they drive on the road doesn’t promote business.”
Under Bell’s approach, Johnston said, “Instead of ticketing or punishing someone or waiting for someone to commit a crime ... we’re going to stop you before you do it. ... The oil and gas companies welcomed it.”
Told of Johnston’s comments, Byrd said, “So he’s saying we were using county personnel and county resources to serve private companies?”
Johnston first said he did not know if Bell ever stopped trucks and weighed them on the roads but then said he was “sure” Bell did.
“I wasn’t his supervisor,”Johnston noted. “He reported directly to the county judge and no one else.”
Johnston said he knew that Bell monitored issues such as road easements and blocked roads, and once dealt with a mobile home that had been left on a road.
Guns paid for with county money for Bell included the two .223-caliber AR-15-style rifles, a Mini-14 rifle, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol with three magazines, county records show. The guns cost a total of $4,419.95.
The county also bought $8,450.31 in ammunition for the road-police guns, the records show.
B ell has said he had enough ammunition to last until 2020.
Bell has said the Mini-14 rifle and a shotgun were stolen.
The county turned the remaining weapons and ammunition over to the Damascus Police Department, Johnston said.
Damascus Police Chief Randy Spencer said Sept. 14 that he did not have the pistol and didn’t need another one anyway.
But Johnston said in an email Monday that Spencer’s department now has that pistol, which police there will use “as a [back-up] pistol.”
Damascus has a population of 382.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/25/2012