This morning a Phoenix TV station aired a feel-good story about cops who are “rewarding people for good driving behavior” by pulling them over and giving them coupons for drinks at Circle K convenience stores. “If you see a Tempe police officer pulling you over,” chirped Colleen Sikora, a correspondent for the NBC affiliate KPNX, “it may not be a bad thing. If an officer sees someone following traffic laws correctly related to bicycles and pedestrians, they can pull you over, but instead of a citation, you’ll get a free drink coupon for either a cold drink or hot beverage…They’re kicking off the campaign this morning at 8 a.m., so if you see police lights in your rear view mirror, maybe hold off on the panic.”
For anyone who values the Fourth Amendment, which requires that police have reason to believe a driver has committed a crime or a traffic violation to justify forcibly detaining him, the program described by Sikora is definitely “a bad thing.” That sentiment is clearly shared by viewers who reacted to the story on Twitter. “This is an insanely bad & illegal idea,” one commented. “This is actually illegal,” observed another.
Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who is now a law professor at the University of South Carolina, elaborated: “This is absolutely unlawful. A traffic stop is a seizure, and must be supported by probable cause of a traffic infraction or reasonable suspicion of a crime. A traffic stop that lacks one of those legal justifications violates the Fourth Amendment.”
To its credit, the Tempe Police Department seems to recognize that stopping motorists because they are not committing any traffic violations would be unconstitutional. According to the written version of the story on the KPNX website, bylined by Sikora herself, Tempe Det. Greg Bacon “said officers won’t be pulling over drivers, but officers will find opportunities to engage and educate citizens on traffic laws.”
Bacon explains the “Positive Ticketing Campaign” this way: “We will be having positive conversations with citizens. Say an officer happens to stop somewhere and see somebody, and says, ‘Hey, would you mind having a conversation with me?’ [to] educate them on bicycle laws and traffic laws.” KSAZ, the Fox station in Phoenix, likewise says “Tempe police report they will not be pulling anyone over to give them a free drink coupon.” In a tweet this afternoon, the Tempe Police Department reiterated that officers “will not be proactively stopping vehicles, bicycles, scooters or pedestrians.”
A police department dispatcher described the Positive Ticketing Campaign as a “back-to-school program” aimed at bikers, scooters, and pedestrians. She told me it was never meant to target motorists.
Given that police officers across the country have been less punctilious about following the Fourth Amendment when they perceive themselves as doing nice things for people, Sikora’s initial confusion may be understandable. But her insouciance in the face of blatant constitutional violations is harder to fathom.
[Thanks to Seth Mandel for the tip.]
Even if this program was launched with the best of intentions, which I truly doubt, it will degrade into just another reason to be able to pull someone over without just cause.
Tempe detective Greg Bacon.
If you elude the attempted gifting, would that be cause for a “swatting”?
Government in general uses threats or actual force and violence against the people in order to assure compliance to its own set of plantation rules. Why should travelers, some of whom may be drivers, not fear the cops? If cops were not armed, and if there was no police brutality going on as a normal method of policing, cops might not be feared. But they are and there is, and so the fear is justified.
I have often thought that dual camera dashcams should be mandatory equipment installed in all new cars and trucks as they will help mitigate police violence on our roadways. We know government uses cameras to spy on the people, and it is time for the people to return the favor by tracking their own interactions with government.
Proverbs 29:4-5
‘If red, white, and blue represent ‘freedom’, then why don’t you feel that when you see it in your rear-view mirror?’
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LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t need any murdering goon to stop me to pat me on the back and say I’m doing shit right
What I really need is for them to quit being such tyrants and to go crawl into some hole in the ground and blow away
You can’t trust “ good intentions” from thugs , sorry but their history shows they are not here to help
“If an officer sees someone following traffic laws correctly related to bicycles and pedestrians, they can pull you over, but instead of a citation, you’ll get a free drink coupon for either a cold drink or hot beverage…”
I’d sooner accept a glass of wine from the Borgias.
It’s just conditioning the dumbed down sheeple even more….it’s the boiling the frog slowly scenario …..plain and simple
It’s no different than a criminal breaking into a house to give the house owner a prize for keeping their home and yard clean and tidy.