Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Sneaky!

Well, not really. They're not actually pretending to be anything they're not. But it's a nice trick anyway.
On Saturday, a trooper stood on a street corner in Spanaway, Pierce County, and helped bust 30 people for not wearing their seat belts. The trooper, wearing plain clothes and a cardboard sign around his neck that read "Happy Holidays Buckle Up," was able to keep a close eye on passing traffic from the southeast corner of Highway 7 and 112th Street East. When he spotted someone who wasn't wearing a seat belt, the trooper radioed fellow troopers parked nearby who pulled over the offender.

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out, Trooper J.J. Gundermann said. Troopers also made one drug arrest and six outstanding-warrant arrests.

Some motorists, seeing a man on the roadside wearing a sign, offered him money, apparently figuring he was a panhandler, the State Patrol said. The trooper refused the money.

A plague on those people who bellyached about it being unethical. If you don't wanna get caught doing something, don't do it. There's no invasion of privacy involved, and I have yet to meet a bum on the sidewalk whose sign says "Will work if you unbuckle your seatbelt." For my part, I get a kick out of seeing cops outsmart scofflaws; it so often goes the other way.
One passenger rolled down his window, hollered obscenities at [Vancouver Police Sgt. Jason] Linn and hurled a half-full can of soda before he realized Linn was a trooper. The man was given a $1,050 littering ticket. A 15-year-old who was driving the car was cited for not having a valid license and for allegedly stealing his father's rental car, Kesler said.

Story here.

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