QUINCY - Quincy Police Capt. Gene Fretheim defended his letter to a town resident, saying he was stating the issues.

The captain and Police Chief Richard Ackerman made the comments following a city council meeting where Nichol Knebel addressed a response she received from the captain concerning a complaint. Knebel questioned how a city ordinance was enforced during a February council meeting.

The complaint was investigated and the initial report was given to Mayor Jim Hemberry within a week of Knebel coming to the city council, Fretheim said. He wasn't aware the police department needed to send it directly to Knebel until recently. Fretheim thought the city administrator or another official responded to the person filing the complaint.

"This was investigated. She was interviewed. Other people out there were interviewed, and I got the whole investigation and I wrote this response," he said. "What I bring up in the letter is what I gave to (Hemberry) that very next day."

 A third party witness reportedly stated he was amazed Knebel wasn't arrested by the officer because of the way she was acting, Fretheim said.

"That's why I'm pointing out these things. Not only to her, but to the city council because they asked for that feedback," he said. "I'm trying to point out that these are issues that reoccur all the time with the police department."

Fretheim wasn't trying to say Knebel was a bad, evil person, he said. He was trying to say on the day of the incident she was acting inappropriately.

"She was in violation of one of our municipal codes and I agreed with her that particular code wasn't applicable for moving the car for the purposes of clearing the street of snow," he said. "That particular code is for what we would commonly refer to as an inoperable vehicle. One that is perhaps sitting there without an engine."

The officers knew the vehicle hadn't been moved, and the code states the vehicle needed to be moved 500 feet, Fretheim said. He agreed with Knebel, saying even if the car was dug out, moved 500 feet and then parked in the same spot it wouldn't help the city plow the streets.

"We are looking into all of our codes, trying to revamp them and bring them up to speed and make them better, so they are appropriate for our needs," he said.

Knebel complained about a section of the letter stating police might not get to all the violators in an area depending on the time restraints. Ackerman replied officers might have received higher priority calls.

"There are a whole bunch of reasons, not every single car on every single day in every single city gets a ticket," he said. "If you get distracted, you move onto something else. It may seem like you're picking on one or two cars, when you might be ready to cite everybody on the street, but you got distracted ... It's all a matter of what side of the fence you're on as far as perception."

Fretheim's letter stated if he had to choose between citing all the violators and citing none, he would choose citing none because he couldn't guarantee being able to cite all of them.

"Am I going to call together a task force and get all the officers over here from the whole county and the adjoining county, and (say,) 'Ready, set, go. I need 40 officers over here and each one of you get to a car and take care of business.' We don't have the resources to do that kind of thing."

Ackerman explained the department used to receive a list of vehicles from the public works.

"Then it was asked in a number of meetings, 'Can we take it upon ourselves to do it without this list from public works?'" he said. "So we've been doing that ... We've been trying to do our best to support the city efforts to get inoperable vehicles off the roadway."

Fretheim pointed out a section in his letter where he wrote the city officials need to support their officers. Knebel saw the section as saying the city would support it's officers, but not its citizens.

"We're out there doing what you asked us to do, enforcing the codes and laws that you have put in place," Fretheim said. "When some citizen steps up and complains about the fact that we're out there enforcing the code, then I ask them, 'Please don't throw the officer under the bus,' in that situation."