There’s nothing more annoying than getting a traffic ticket!
Oh, there is? Yes, traffic tickets you don’t know about are worse.
What’s that? It can get even worse? Yes, not paying them does usually end in warrants being issued for your arrest, but surely it can’t get any more annoying than that.
Oh, you’re a senator?
Well, that is super, duper awkward and vexatious.
Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, learned about his warrant the hard way after applying to join police on a ride-along to learn more about civil asset forfeiture. Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater turned down Loveless’ request due to an outstanding warrant.
“[Someone] delivered a bunch of information to me regarding active warrants that Senator Loveless had at that time related to an Oklahoma City traffic ticket that hadn’t been paid,” Prater told News9.com.
Loveless claimed he forgot about the ticket or didn’t know about it at all. In any case, he told News9.com that he paid it and his driver’s license is reinstated and “everything’s kosher.”
He also said he still wants to do the ride-along, but Prater squashed those dreams.
“I’m not interested in having him ride. … If he has that disregard, that much disregard for the law and for the laws that he’s involved in writing, I’m not interested in him being a part of it,” Prater said.
Loveless wants to change Oklahoma’s civil asset forfeiture law, which allows police to seize property and cash found during traffic stops even if no charges are filed and use profits to fund police budgets.
“I just started researching it. And the more I researched it, the more angry and the more upset I got,” NewsOK.com quoted Loveless in a May 2015 article. “I don’t want to get rid of it. What I want to do is put safeguards into place … so law enforcement agencies don’t have an incentive to take things illegally.”
Loveless’ proposed law is called the Personal Asset Protection Act.
Print headline: Warrant forfeitureSpeaking of...
More by Gazette staff
-
Kevin recently replaced four of the six Oklahoma State Board of Education members with all the precision of a bazooka.
Jan 25, 2023 -
Of all the twists and turns the Republicans have taken in recent years, playing it soft with Vladimir Putin is one of the most bizarre.
Jan 25, 2023 -
Nothing says Oklahoma City quite like a sculpture made by New York artists.
Jan 11, 2023 - More »
Latest in Commentary
-
To legalize or not to legalize? That is State Question 820.
Jan 25, 2023 -
Here’s to a less violent 2023
Jan 11, 2023 -
What momentum?
Dec 28, 2022 - More »
Readers also liked…
-
What momentum?
Dec 28, 2022
September 07, 2016 News » Commentary