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OGDEN, Utah (AP) -- Police Chief Jon Greiner said he was not violating the law when he ran the license plate of a vehicle holding a woman seen driving a van, with a sign criticizing the city's ticket-quota policy.
The car was driven by Officer Matt Jones and the woman was the officer's wife.
Greiner said state law allows license-plate records to be released to police for administrative purposes as well as for criminal investigations.
However, Brian Barnard, a Salt Lake City civil rights attorney, said Greiner may have abused the provision, because he had no legal basis for running Jones' plate.
"He was running the plate for the purpose of retaliation," Barnard said. "If a police officer is going to invade your life, he has to have suspicion of a crime. He used his position as a police officer for a non-law enforcement purpose. It clearly was unprofessional."
Greiner said he ran the plate to determine if a member of the Ogden Police Benefit Association lied when he stated no members of the organization were involved with the van. Jones belongs to the association.
"I had a right to do that as an administrator," Greiner said.
Paul Murphy, a spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's Office, said it would be inappropriate for his agency to give an opinion on Greiner's decision to run Jones' plate since the agency is not involved in the issue.
City Attorney Gary Williams has declined to discuss the issue.
The incident involving Jones occurred last week when the mayor saw the officer's wife driving a van that bore a sign reading "Welcome to Ogden City, home of Godfrey's ticket quota."
The sign referred to complaints from some Ogden Police Benefit Association members, their families and residents about a sliding evaluation scale that uses the number of tickets issued and other factors in awarding merit raises to police.
Godfrey saw Jones' wife driving the van and the police officer following in another vehicle.
After the woman parked the van, the mayor watched as she walked toward Jones' car.
Godfrey provided the license plate number of Jones' vehicle to Greiner, who ran a check through Weber County Consolidated Dispatch.
Jones was placed on administrative leave with pay about two hours later.
Greiner said Jones' suspension was unrelated to the van issue, and instead was due to citizen complaints in July.
Greiner is a candidate for the state Senate.
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Information from: Standard-Examiner, http://www.standard.net
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
