Gotten a speeding ticket in Charlotte in the past 15 years? It turns out the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department hasn’t had properly calibrated radar guns since 2008, CMPD leaders admitted Wednesday.

State law requires speed-checking equipment, like radar and LiDAR, to be inspected annually by a certified technician or lab. That didn’t happen with all of Charlotte’s equipment, the city said.


What You Need To Know

  • CMPD said its radar speed-detection equipment has not been properly certified since 2008

  • The city discovered the issue on Jan. 31 when a technician went to get certified. The city department had not been using certified technicians to do the annual inspections on all of its speed-detection equipment

  • The District Attorney's Office said it is not sure how many cases are affected, but people should not pay speeding tickets online. Instead, people with speeding tickers, or their attorneys, should appear in court on the date listed on the ticket

  • The city said it is recertifying all of the radar and LiDAR equipment and expect that work to be done by March 1

The city said uncertified technicians have been inspecting many of the radar and LiDAR devices, and then a supervisor who is certified, would sign the inspection reports. The issue with the LiDAR, which uses a laser to detect speed devices, began in 2018.

The District Attorney’s Office said people should not pay their speeding tickets online and instead appear in court on the date listed on the ticket.

“The DA’s Office will review pending speeding cases as they appear in court, as well as other cases that arose from traffic stops in which LiDAR or radar equipment is relevant, and take whatever action is appropriate,” the DA’s office said in a statement.

The city said the issue came to light Jan. 31 when one of the city’s technicians went to get certified to calibrate the equipment, and then started asking questions about CMPD’s process.

“Officers used this equipment understanding that they were properly certified and followed all Constitutional laws for initiating traffic stops,” CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said in a statement.

The city said the district attorney’s office planned to tell defense lawyers about the mistake on Wednesday. A city spokesman said it’s not clear how many speeding tickets CMPD officers have handed out since 2008 and how many came from the improperly certified speed detectors.

The city’s Public Safety Communications Division, which certified the devices, learned about the problem on Jan. 31. The department did not tell police leadership until Feb. 3, according to the city. On Feb. 9, the police department told officers to stop using the radar and LiDAR devices.

The city began the process to re-certify the devices on Feb. 9. They hope to have that process complete by March 1, the city said.

The city did not tell the district attorney about the problem until Feb. 14. It’s not clear what the legal impacts will be for the city.

In a statement, city officials said they think the problem started with a bad interpretation of state law in 2008 and then it just became standard practice. Charlotte officials said they are being investigated.

“The city is still in the early stages of this investigation, and some of the people who oversaw this work initially have retired or left the city’s employment, so the investigation may take some time,” officials said.

The District Attorney’s Office is also investigating what happened and warned that other police departments may have been affected.

Prosecutors with Mecklenburg County started screening for cases that may have involved improperly certified radar and LiDAR on Tuesday. State law says the devices can only be used to corroborate the opinion of police, not as the primary evidence of speeding, District Attorney Spencer Merriweather’s office said in a statement Wednesday.

“Prosecutors sought to continue those cases to allow more time to assess the situation. When the continuance was denied, our prosecutors disclosed the evidence to defendants and then proceeded on those cases without the use of radar/LiDAR evidence,” the DA’s office said. “Even after disclosure of that evidence, some defendants were ultimately convicted of crimes charged.”

“We anticipate that we will be able to proceed on many of these cases in the absence of corroborative equipment-based evidence, but in other instances, cases may ultimately be dismissed,” according to the DA’s office. 

Clarification: The headline has been updated to reflect that Charlotte police haven't had ceritified radar epuipment since 2008.