Refuting a bad rap
Bellevue Marshal Gunter counters criticism
By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer
You’ve heard the rumors: Be careful driving through Bellevue.
Even if you’re one mile over the speed limit, the deputy marshal will
ticket you. If you drive below the speed limit, you will be ticketed for driving too slow.
But Bellevue Marshal Jeff Gunter says those rumors are untrue. He and his
deputies do not ticket drivers for going one mile over the limit nor for going under the
limit. His job, he says, is to slow the drivers to a safe speed going through town.
And Gunter is not a lone voice. Bellevue Mayor Steve Fairbrother and city
councilman Monte Brothwell want people passing through to slow down. Brothwell and
Fairbrother said Gunter is acting on the city’s directive to stop speeders.
Gunter, 39, has been the city’s marshal since April 1998, after eight
years in the Hailey Police Department where he rose to the rank of sergeant. He and his
wife live in Bellevue.
Before his time on the Hailey force, he served as a reserve officer in
Bellevue from 1988 to 1990, finishing his training at the Boise Peace Officers Standards
and Training academy in 1990.
While he has been successful in reducing the average speed through
Bellevue, the success comes at the cost of negative publicity.
For example, at the June 22 city council meeting, Bellevue resident Tom
Perry said he didn’t "believe the town should be a speed trap like some small
jerkwater town in South Carolina."
The criticism that Bellevue is a speed trap rankled Brothwell, who is also
the city’s police commissioner. He reminded the council at its July 13 meeting of an
accident involving an 11-year-old boy that led to the city’s strict enforcement of
its speed limits.
The accident, which occurred five years ago, involved Tyler Shelly and an
elderly couple driving their mini-van home to Arizona in the summer of 1995.
In a telephone interview, the boy’s mother, Judy, said her son was
waiting to cross the street at a corner near the Wood River subdivision. According to the
mother, the van, traveling 46 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone, swiped the boy.
The impact was so great, it severed his left hand from his body. And
although physicians were able to reattach his hand, he has had to undergo five surgeries
and will undergo another this month.
After the accident, Shelly and her husband John got the support of other
citizens and the city council to reduce speeding through the city.
Shelly says she believes the enforcement "really has slowed down most
people," but she adds, "there are still people going too fast."
According to Gunter, the average speed through the city was 37 to 39 miles
an hour in the early 1990s. When he conducted a traffic survey this June, the average
speed was down to 31 to 32 miles an hour.
When asked by the Mountain Express for a look at the speeding
tickets issued since the beginning of the year, Gunter immediately ran off a computer
printout. Those 418 speeding tickets show that 98 percent of the drivers were cited for
speeding 10 miles an hour or more over the limit. Eleven of these drivers were going 30
miles an hour or more over the speed limit.
Criticism of Gunter’s department, however, goes beyond its
enforcement of speed limits.
According to city clerk Dee Barton, a petition critical of the
marshal’s department was presented to the city council on May 25. Barton said 134
people signed the following statement:
"Sit in staged in Bellevue! Have you been unfairly stopped by
marshalls [sic]? Do you sense oppressive scruitny [sic] by law enfforcement [sic]
officers? Do you feel hunted by preditory [sic] deputies?
"If so, stop by the Bellevue City Council meeting (city hall) on
Thursday May 25 and join with other citizens who feel that the law is made to serve the
people, not people made to serve the law, or sign this petition and be counted!"
Barton said that in addition to the petition, the city received six
letters critical of the marshal’s department. According to Barton, the petition and
letters are on file at city hall, but so far no action has been taken.
One of the letters, by Ruth A. Boyer, said, "I would like for you to
know that Bellevue is listed with Triple A as a town to stay out of. Is this how you want
the town remembered? I know I don’t."
A call to the Idaho American Automobile Association in Twin Falls by the Mountain
Express revealed that the AAA has a list of cities where "traffic laws are
rigorously enforced," but Bellevue is not on it. In addition, the AAA said it does
not keep a list of "speed traps."
Another letter writer, Kima Blake, complained that she was stopped after
leaving the Silver Dollar one night because, the officer said, she "was driving too
close to the fog line." After looking at her license, she said, the officer sent her
on her way.
When asked about this, Gunter said law officers have probable cause to
believe someone is driving under the influence (DUI) if a driver’s tires are on the
center or lane marker. That and 19 other indicators, according to a National Highway
Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) study, account for more than 90 percent
of all DUI detections.
Sharon Blondin, owner of Sam’s Club in Bellevue and one of the
petitioners, said in a telephone interview that she has heard many complaints from patrons
who believe they are being stopped for no reason other than that they have left a bar.
She says that she doesn’t want to harass the police and that she
thinks they do a lot of good things, but, she said, "They harass us all the time by
driving through the alley" behind the bar, checking out license plate numbers and
asking people if they have been drinking.
Gunter said he does not harass bar patrons.
"We don’t lay in wait for DUI (driving under the influence)
arrests," he said. "If we see someone stumbling to his car, we try to get to him
before he starts his engine and try to get him home.
"We are not doing anything different between day and night. We stop
cars at night for the same reasons we stop cars during the day."
Retired Idaho law enforcement officer and Bellevue councilman Larry Plott
told the Mountain Express that police officers are trained to look for indicators
of DUI, like failure to dim headlights and failure to signal.
"These are standard reasons for pulling a driver," he said.
But, he added, there is more to being a police officer than issuing
tickets. "How does he treat people?" Plott asks. "Is the officer
approachable, does he visit people, do people in the community trust him with their
problems?"
Furthermore, he said, "A police officer needs to be honest and fair
in his dealings with all people, regardless of ethnic background or influence in the
community. An officer must like and understand the people he works for if he is going to
serve them."
And, according to Plott, this is what being a policeman is all
about—being a "true servant" of the people.
