Chief of Police Sees Red After Ticket Is Dismissed : Law: Many erring drivers may escape fines because Laguna Beach police motorcycles are painted partly blue.

The Police Department has been flooded with calls from motorists hoping to have their tickets dismissed since a traffic commissioner recently threw out a citation because the city’s police motorcycles are painted the wrong color, an outraged police chief said Tuesday.

“I’ve been in this business 31 years, and I’m not naive enough not to know I’m going to get a surprise once in a while,” Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said. “But this comes as a surprise.”

The uproar revolves around an obscure state law that says police motorcycles used primarily by traffic officers must be painted either black and white or completely white, except for the trim.

For 10 years, Laguna Beach police officers have cruised on motorcycles painted white with blue trim and mostly blue gas tanks. Purcell said the motorcycles, the only ones among Orange County law enforcement agencies with that color scheme, are clearly identifiable as police vehicles.

But Santa Ana attorney John R. Farris Jr. successfully argued in traffic court Oct. 23 that a speeding ticket issued to his client should be thrown out because Laguna Beach motorcycles were not properly painted.

Traffic Commissioner Matt Flynn agreed and dismissed the ticket.

Flynn said Tuesday that his decision was based on the fact that, according to state law, using a wrongly painted motorcycle to issue traffic citations constitutes a “speed trap” and means the ticket must be dismissed.

A ticketing officer “is not competent to testify if it’s a speed trap, and the court does not have jurisdiction to hear it,” said Flynn, who was once a motorcycle officer with the city of Buena Park.

“The Legislature is saying in very strong words that we’re setting a public policy here,” Flynn said. “When people are on the road, we want them to have some idea that when red lights come on behind them, they will have some standardization so people will know this is a genuine police officer trying to stop them.”

While Flynn said that not all traffic commissioners concur with his decision, he would dismiss other tickets if the circumstances were the same.

California Highway Patrol Officer Angel Johnson said she has never heard of a traffic ticket being tossed out because of the color of the officer’s vehicle. CHP motorcycles are black and white.

“Can you imagine,” she said, “all these people are going to come back and say, ‘I got a ticket last week, what are you going to do about mine?’ ”

Farris, one of two attorneys at a firm called Traffic Ticket Attorneys, said he searches for “technicalities” in the law that will allow him to defend his clients in court when they are not present.

Farris said the victory in court last month was his first involving the color of police motorcycles, which he had researched for eight months..

“I have not found any other city that has disobeyed the color” regulation, he said. “Everyplace else is black and white.”

Farris said it is harder to identify a motorcycle rider as a police officer now that all motorcyclists wear helmets, as required by a new state law.

Purcell, however, said his department’s motorcycles could not be mistaken for anything other than police vehicles.

The chief said blue was added to the previously all-white motorcycles in the early 1980s after the department received permission from the CHP commissioner in Sacramento. City police cars and other vehicles are also painted blue and white.

Purcell has asked Ronald P. Kreber, presiding judge of Laguna Niguel Municipal Court, for further clarification on Flynn’s ruling.

“I could understand it if we were buying multicolored bikes,” the police chief said. “It’s a distinctive color unlike Joe Blow’s out there on the street. There is no secret about it being a police motorcycle.”

The important thing, according to Purcell, is that the ruling allows motorists to beat a traffic ticket when they are clearly in the wrong. The ticket in question involved an incident on June 25, when radar clocked a driver at 20 miles over the 45-m.p.h. speed limit on El Toro Road, Purcell said. The name of the motorist who received the ticket has not been released.

“What’s most irritating to me is that citations are being either dismissed or people found to be exonerated . . . because of the color of the gas tanks on the side of our motorcycles,” Purcell said. “What does that have to do with it?”

While only one ticket has been dismissed so far, Purcell said his department has been contacted by dozens of motorists who want their tickets negated as well. “By the calls we got from citizens, including a couple attorneys, I can expect more,” he said.