Trevor Hughes

USA TODAY

SEATTLE – The city has torn up nearly 90 citations given to people accused of publicly smoking marijuana after an investigation revealed a single cop wrote most of them.

Seattle officials on Monday dismissed the tickets over concerns Officer Randy Jokela was unfairly and arbitrarily targeting the homeless and African-Americans. On one of the tickets, Jokela wrote a note indicating he had flipped a coin about who to give the ticket to. Jokela was temporarily reassigned and faces an internal affairs investigation.

"The police do not write the laws. They enforce the laws," said Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes. "You can't be a legislator out on the street."

Seattle has decriminalized simple marijuana possession, and the state of Washington permits both recreational and medical marijuana consumption and possession. Public consumption, however, remains illegal.

It's unclear, city officials said, whether Jokela was simply aggressively handing out legitimate tickets or if he was just making up the charges because he objected to the decriminalization and legalization of marijuana in Seattle. Jokela is accused of writing 80% of the marijuana tickets in the first six months of the year.

The city formally voided the 86 tickets on Monday morning.

Holmes, who backed the campaigns to decriminalize and then legalize marijuana, said Jokela's seemingly arbitrary approach to writing tickets was "abhorrent." He said social justice requires the law be applied evenly, and on Monday announced a new police policy aimed at educating users first before issuing them a ticket.