Last year, a large proportion of the calls municipal cops received were for traffic violations, with 35,616 (41%) of the 92,706 calls related to parking violations.
Juris Lūkass says that his institution has turned into "a huge traffic police force", even though municipal police aren't tasked with monitoring this area of life.
He said each call over traffic violations takes up about half an hour to respond to.
"Just imagine where police resources are spent," said Lūkass, adding that this also greatly increases the onus of administrative paperwork the police have to carry out.
"It's wrong that the Municipal Police of Riga are turning into traffic police. These functions should be gradually handed to other structures, not the people in police uniform and who are primarily tasked with keeping order and safety," says Riga mayor.
He did not however say which police structure should assume the task instead.
