Posted on 12/06/2005 12:30:15 PM PST by paulat
State trooper or panhandler? Drivers fooled By Jennifer Sullivan Seattle Times staff reporter
In the three years since state lawmakers gave cops the go-ahead to pull over people for not wearing seat belts, the State Patrol has become creative about spotting scofflaws.
But one new approach has raised a few eyebrows — while providing results troopers call impressive.
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.
[SNIP]
John Strait, a law professor at Seattle University, said the operation "sounds tacky" but isn't illegal.
"I'm not sure it's great public policy," Strait said. "I don't think there's a legal privacy issue."
University of Washington criminal-law professor John Junker said police have a right to work in an undercover capacity. They also have a right to penalize people for what can be seen in plain view — such as not wearing a seat belt.
Troopers in King County say they are considering using the same tactic.
[SNIP]
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Good grief.
Hey, it beats fighting actual crime.
Beats stopping crime, I guess.
Working on commission?
Meanwhile, enforcement is worried about offending child molesters, murderers, gang members, legal gun owners.... the list goes on and on.
** ARMED TAX COLLECTER ALERT **
Our wonderful soviet state's new form of taxes.
More proof that "law enforcement" is now "tax collection"
Since police generally are given quite a bit of discretion in deciding what is and is not important enough to investigate and puruse -- think turn signal laws here -- why shouldn't LEOs just treat these nanny-state laws the same way and summarily ignore them?
Instead, they are enforced as if national security depended on them.
That would be illegal gun owners (felons).
These are the ways that the police make themselves unpopular.
You want to support them, on the one hand.
On the other hand, they spend time and energy on this sort of crap.
I live in a very small town. A few months ago I drove by the sheriff standing on the side of the road - on the line. He was leaning over looking into car windows. In fact I had to swerve to miss him. I had my seatbelt on, but there was somebody pulled over by another cop further up the road.
Similarly, in leftist-run Montgomery County Maryland, the keystoners there were using night-vision goggles to spot seatbelt violations.
I'd think that this sort of covert surveillance (since the officer is in "disguise") would not be legal.
So who cares. If they do not wear their seat belts it is them who will be dead. If they do not belt up their children that is another problem.
But is they are old enough to drive they should have the right to chose safe or unsafe.
The supporters of seat belt laws laughed when I called it a slippery slope. They said the police can't pull you over for that alone. In Michigan they do exactly that now. Looks like they're now putting money into paying undercover cops to ticket people not wearing theirs.
Seat belts, A great idea and a really bad law.
ping
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