by Rod Hughes

Next time you get a traffic ticket in Costa Rica, you might remember traffic officer Jesus Ruiz before you get too resentful. He maintains that he is paying dearly for giving a ticket—to his boss last December.

According to an exclusive story in the popular newspaper Diario Extra, Ruiz stopped a vehicle for lack of plates for going 84 kilometers in a 25 kilometer per hour school zone outside of Santa Cruz in Guanacaste province. The driver turned out to be the regional chief of the traffic cops, Walter Arguello. That part is undisputed and the Santa Cruz traffic court suspended Arguello’s license for six months.

It was after that incident when the trouble began, Ruiz told the newspaper. He was suddenly ordered on Christmas eve to report for work—in San Jose. He has lived in Nicoya and worked in Guanacaste since 1998. Moreover, he had to commute daily—by bus—paying his own way, because, Human Resources Dept. told him, he had been contracted originally in San Jose and, in pure bureaucratic logic, could not be paid transport because on paper he lived in San Jose. Catch 22. The assignment was to last three months.

The national Traffic Police chief German Marin says that the assignment was routine, that they needed Ruiz in San Jose, and there was no relation between the traffic citation and his temporary reassignment. Ruiz is having none of this explanation, noting that he was the only one in his divistion to get such an assignment.

The situation of a traffic cop ticketing his boss is not unheard of, noted the newspaper gleefully. In 2005, a traffic police chief was in an accident in his patrol car in the San Jose suburb of Zapote. An alcohol test showed 1.84, the equivalent, according to the paper, of 15 to 17 beers. Despite Article 74 of police regulations making drinking during duty hours a serious offense, the police Personnel Council recommended a 30-day suspension and payment of accident damage, taking into consideration the chief’s long service and clean previous record.

But, returning to Ruiz, if he is right about being punished for doing his duty as the newspaper maintains, one wonders what is in store for him for going over his superiors’ heads directly to the press?