Shoshoni Police Chief Chris Konija knows it’s up to him to protect his vulnerable town.
He’s strategically parked and zeroed in on the traffic buzzing down Second Street, his focus as lasertight as the invisible radar beam shooting from the dash mount.
His mission, as he explains it, is no less than defending innocent people from harm, although that’ll probably sound melodramatic to the gal in the Subaru doing 15 mph over the speed limit.
“See, right here: 43, 44, 45,” says Konija, counting along with the dash mount radar.
“Too fast.”
He flips the blue lights, punches the gas and whips out behind the driver.
The woman in the Subaru unleashes a burst of expletives and shakes her head in disappointment as she pulls to the shoulder of the road. Rather, that’s what you imagine she’s doing based on your personal experience.
In either case, she’s sweetly apologetic by the time Konija approaches her window. But puppy-dog eyes won’t get you anywhere with the Shoshoni police.
Back in the cruiser, he scans the license, checks for warrants, then bangs out a citation on his cellphone with the quickness of a text message. A paper ticket squeaks out of a tiny bluetooth printer, indicating this woman from Minnesota officially owes the town of Shoshoni $143.
Top to bottom, the stop takes about 10 minutes.
And to think, there are drivers just like her who speed through town. All. Day. Long.
This Minnesota woman is among the thousands of motorists who’ve received speeding citations on this exact stretch of roadway over the years, a pattern that’s earned Shoshoni the reputation as Wyoming’s foremost “speed trap.”
That phrase alludes to a sneaky and heavy-handed approach to traffic enforcement. But be careful how you use it around here, because local leaders don’t take it kindly.
“There’s assumption, and then there’s reality,” Konija says, umbrage in his undertone. “The reality is that the average stop for speed enforcement is 48 mph in a 30 mph zone. You want to know what that looks like?”
It feels like a trick question.
“I’ll show you what I’m talking about,” he says.
He puts the cruiser in drive and pulls into traffic.
This ride-along is about to get real, you think to yourself.
Then you think, is now the right time to point out he’s not wearing his seat belt?
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily) 
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily) 
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily) 
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily)
Not Your Average Small-Town Cop
Konija, 46, has an uncannily cop-like aura, almost too cop-like, as though he were a character actor playing detective in a police procedural.
He has unshakably stoic, slate-blue eyes, which betray only slightly more emotion than the mirrored sunglasses they usually hide behind. His facial scruff is thin and spotty and resembles blades of spiky grass in a lawn going to dirt.
He smells faintly of cigarettes and keeps a pack of Newports in the door cup of his patrol car. It’s an on-again, off-again habit he picked up as a 20-year-old active-duty Army serviceman at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
When it comes to the rule of law, he’s got a “not-up-for-discussion” attitude that comes across a bit stilted, as if he were reading straight from an academy handbook.
“Who you are or who you know should not have any bearing on the way you're treated by law enforcement, because over time that gives people the belief that there’s real fairness,” he said, referring to the challenges of settling disputes in small towns, where he believes lawmen commonly play favorites.
He’s by-the-book, but he’s also case-by-case.
He’s the type of officer who’ll arrest a guy for driving drunk, then look after the guy’s cat while he’s in the slammer, as he did for the resident who last month was found on a traffic stop with a house cat and two pints of open vodka in his lap.
Reputation As Beat Up As Patrol Cars
Konija arrived in Shoshoni with a gumption like Wyatt Earp, bent on rehabilitating a police force whose reputation was in as bad a shape as its patrol cars.
The town’s two-man force drove a pair of rickety Crown Victorias they didn’t feel safe in at high speeds, Konija explained.
One had a DIY plywood console where police electronics nestled in a bed of their own wires, a stop-gap solution courtesy the handy town mayor Joel Highsmith.
Police headquarters was an old trailer with puttering swamp coolers and described by Konija as “smelly, hot, disgusting.”
On one occasion, residents made an emergency call for help for a disturbance at the Fast Lane gas station. The officer on duty took 90 minutes to respond because his patrol car wouldn’t start.
Myriad incidents like these caused residents to lose faith in their civil servants, according to town Mayor Highsmith, who declined to reinstate the former police chief when coming to power in 2020.
He instead appointed Konija, who has brought expertise from a variety of law enforcement agencies along with a master’s degree in public administration, which has come handy with his zealous grant-writing campaign that's so far yielded new cruisers and a new police headquarters, among other amenities.
Public opinion as a result has slowly changed for the better, the mayor said.
Yet some things have stayed exactly the same: No matter how many speeding citations officers write, drivers don’t seem to be getting the message.
It begs the question of whether prolific ticketing actually improves public safety, or if it’s merely the safest way to sustain a small-town budget.
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily) 
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily) 
From a tiny, rural agency to a modernized force, the Shoshoni Police Department has changed — even if its infamous speed check and reliance on revenue from tickets haven’t. And don’t call it a “trap,” the chief says. (Zakary Sonntag, Cowboy State Daily)
‘You're Telling Me That’s Not A Hazard …?’
Konija idles in the parking lot of a shuttered motel on the west side of town. It's time for him to show you what 48 in 30 feels like. But first, a preface.
“The whole point [of ticketing] is to change behavior,” he says. “If we don’t change this behavior we can’t have the level of public safety people expect.”
He waits for a clearing, then pulls onto Second Street and guns it.
“You feel the difference — you see how this affects your senses and your ability to react?”
The town’s low-slung homes zip past in the periphery. But truthfully, the biggest difference you notice is that when you speed with a cop, you don’t have the same anxiety as when you speed by yourself.
He hits 48, then shoots you a look.
“You're telling me that’s not a hazard for public safety?” he says, eyebrows raising above the rim of his sunglasses.
There’s a clear note of frustration in his voice, and it sounds a little accusatory, which makes you think he’s probably seen your personal driving records. Regardless, you can tell he's had it to here with all the talk of Shoshoni’s infamous speed trap.
That’s your cue to nod fervently in agreement.
“If people are in that much of a hurry that they’re willing to save two or three seconds on their journey by speeding through town, and the dangers that presents to the community, that needs to change,” he says.
Yet despite all the ticketing, it’s not changing.
So what gives?
How Many Tickets Are We Talking Sbout?
Last year, the Shoshoni police issued 2,372 speeding tickets. The year before that they wrote 2,440. The year before that was 1,985.
You get the picture.
If you were to divide that into its population of 630, it’s the annual equivalent of about four speeding tickets for every man, woman and child in this mile-wide town.
Of course, these citations are not going to local residents. They’re doled out among the 3.4 million out-of-town travelers who pass through each year.
The ones who get ticketed are either clueless, careless, or they just don’t care, as is Konija’s theory on the guy with the Florida plates.
It’s just like before: The strategic spot, traffic buzzing past, readout on the dash climbs to 48 and here come the blue lights. But this time it's a two-fer.
A guy from Florida in a spanking-new Explorer is hauling it at 18 mph over while a woman in a white pickup rides his rear as if on a hitch.
They both pull to the side of the road when they see Konija coming.
“He’s got a brand-new car with all the information right in the dash navigator. It tells him the exact speed limit,” Konija says, tearing a ticket off the printer. “Which means he wasn’t paying attention, or he just doesn’t care.”
How Much Revenue Does Shoshoni Get From Citations?
In 2023, which officials described as a representative year, the police department generated $319,075.97 in fines and fees, the majority of which came from speeding citations.
This accounted for more than 30% of the town's general fund, and the police department makes up about 60% of the entire town budget.
What happens if people start to get the message and slow down?
“If people stopped speeding through town, and there was less revenue in the general fund, would that impact our officers and how many officers we had? Potentially, yeah,” Konija said, adding that two of the officers' salaries are funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
The average speed observed during a Shoshoni traffic stop is 48 mph, according to town records. However, the average ticket is written for nine miles over, or 39 mph, which reduces the cost to drivers and leaves less impact on their driving records.
“When someone fixates on the amount of citations given, I go back to the speeds given. If this was about revenue, I wouldn’t be dropping those speeds,” Konija said. “With citations staying flat and even ticking up, I would venture to say people are not getting the message.”
That much is obvious, so the real question is why not try something different.
There’s the cynical take in which travelers are well aware of the speed limit but chose to ignore it by a factor of double digits. But considering most citations go to people unfamiliar with Shoshoni, the implication is that highway signage is insufficient.
Mayor Highsmith explained the town has petitioned the Wyoming Department of Transportation to eliminate a passing lane on the way into town, and to put up additional signage. He says those asks have been ignored.
Konija seems to genuinely believe that the town can cite its way to robust public safety. With enough citations given, he says, the message will eventually reach all drivers: When you arrive in Shoshoni, you better slow down.
“I think it’s especially important when looking at what’s going on in this world right now, and the lack of accountability,” Konija said. “It’s common for someone to make a mistake, and instead of owning up, they’ll blame some component of the apparatus that holds them accountable.”
Zakary Sonntag can be reached at zakary@cowboystatedaily.com.
