Police issue scary looking pizza tickets to people they catch doing good things

boing
1

[Read the post]

2

A “shity” pizza is better then no pizza at all.

8 Likes
3

It’s Denver – these should be “THC Tix” I think!

3 Likes
4

As long as the pizza tickets are not delivered to me out of the barrel of a gun, then yeah sure.

3 Likes
5

This is why I always carry a coupon for 50¢ off a dozen doughnuts.

12 Likes
6

I am curious to know the terms of the sponsorship. If the bank and the pizza company were donating a sizable amount to help defray the operating costs of the PD, then I would see it as an interesting public+private experiment.

7

Seems like a bad combo to me. Either:

A) A publicly-funded police force is diverting resources to give free advertising for the bank and pizza chain, or
B) Private companies have entered into a sponsorship deal with the local police department, which creates all kinds of conflicts of interest.

14 Likes
8

Community outreach?

You’re doing it wrong!

7 Likes
9

(A) could be remedied by getting funding for 2 FTEs in return for what may be 40 hours of LEO time.

I agree (B) may have more pernicious side effects.

2 Likes
10

Verily, how is judgement being passed on this pizza? To truly ruin pizza – to the point that the absence of pizza is superior – takes some doing.

3 Likes
11

I can think of many, many, many worse practices most police departments engage in. This one doesn’t bug me, except that they’re using Papa John’s pizza. Blecch.

7 Likes
12

I like it, I like it a lot. Last year the small town I live in gave “tickets” for a free cone at Dairy Queen to kids they saw riding a bike while wearing helmets. Although, after the first time, every time we went riding to the park they wanted to pass by the station, just in case.

5 Likes
13

I’m wondering what those might be, in an instance such as this. The Denver PD wants to be seen engaging with the community in a positive fashion. Papa John’s and Alpine Bank want to be seen as supportive of such community outreach.

Will this somehow result in a more lenient eye when the health inspector or FDIC auditor comes 'round?

Really, I think this is the sort of engagement we want. At worst, it’s an Officer Friendly-style waste of resources (if you’d rather they spent their time cracking heads of perceived ne’er-do-wells and generally devaluing their precincts).

At best, it serves as public recognition of occasional do-goodery, crowned with the left-handed gift of third-class pizza. Which is still better than a cracked skull or a bullet wound.

8 Likes
14

That’s one possibility. Another is simply that the police will give preferential treatment to “sponsoring” organizations. Which 9-1-1 calls will they respond to faster? Which businesses will they be sure to shoo street vendors and vagrants away from? Will they be as likely to ticket an armored truck or pizza delivery car for double-parking? What kinds of pressure would that make on competing businesses to “voluntarily” support their local police?

It’s less the effect of this single experiment that concerns me than opening the door to corporate sponsorship of law enforcement.

6 Likes
15

I dunno – I kinda want to live in Snow Crash, although that’s admittedly a bit twisted.

4 Likes
16

Uncle Enzo is already set as far as hired guns go.

cosa_nostra.jpg400×520 34.7 KB

11 Likes
17

Looking a little deeper, this appears to be part of ongoing campaign in Denver called “heads up” to help keep pedestrians and cyclists from getting run-over. Looking at the history, the contributions from the bank/pizza place appear to be nominal and one-off.

For an awareness campaign to help keep cars from running over people, this gimmick certainly got national attention.

3 Likes
18

Eh, I’m not worried. Stuff like this has been going on longer than I’ve been alive. Police corruption is going to involve significantly more graft than a couple dozen pizzas.

“Gee, Elmer, how come that cop just sits there when the Papa John’s drivers fly by at 60mph in a 45 zone?”

“Follow the pepperonis, Gladys. You know they’ve cozied up to Johnny Law since the Commissioner came up with that ‘Good Ticket’ program. Now those assholes are untouchable.”

8 Likes
19

It doesn’t matter how friendly the great white shark is. It could be the friendliest shark in the world; when it’s coming toward you, it’s still a great white shark.

7 Likes
20

This does kind of bother me, because it reinforces the notion that the police are overseers of societal behavior rather than people paid to do a specific job. It’s the flip side of the thin blue line mentality; just because it’s the positive side doesn’t mean it isn’t still reinforcing the notion. We should be getting away from that, not encouraging it.

What I would love is if Papa Johns sent out its own employees to hand out coupons to people they saw doing something nice.

10 Likes