What’s Worse Than Pumpkin Spice? Cops Pulling People Over To Give Them Gift Cards – By Scott Shackford (Reason) / Dec 10 2020
This holiday season, police should give citizens the gift of just leaving them in peace.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot about the Christmas season. Travel plans have been cancelled. Family gatherings have been reduced in size and scope. There won’t be nearly as many dinners at fancy restaurants.
But one terrible tradition persists. Police pulling people over as though they had committed some sort of traffic infraction, then giving them a gift instead.
This week WACH, a Fox affiliate in South Carolina, reports that deputies in Richland County are turning on the lights and sirens, pulling people over, and then giving them gift cards to Outback Steakhouse rather than citations or warnings. It is presented, as usual, as an uplifting story for the holiday season. A WACH reporter joined the cops and got happy interviews from people who thought they were getting tickets. The sheriff’s department then gets to give itself the gift of a pat on the back for handing out free bloomin’ onions to people instead of disrupting their lives and saddling them with fines.
This anxiety-inducing crap should not be rewarded with fawning press coverage. The police are abusing citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights. Cops cannot simply pull people over with no suspicion of infractions, even to give them gifts.
