Santa's Elves Give Out Tickets in FL - 150 Tickets in 2 Hours

[TurboDan]

http://www.local6.com/news/10485255/detail.html

(Video is at the link.)



ORLANDO, Fla. -- In Orange County, the problem isn't dashing through the snow. It's cars darting down the street at high speeds.

Here's how it works: a sheriff's deputy dressed as an elf clocks cars using a radar gun then dispatches a motorcycle deputy to pull them over and issue the driver a ticket.

More than 150 tickets were written in just over two hours Thursday.

Some people said using a holiday icon to enforce the law didn't seem right.

"That's specifically why we didn't use Santa Claus," Ken Wyne of the Orange County Sheriff's Office said. "We didn't choose a nativity scene. We chose an elf. An elf is known for their impish behavior. If you're going to speed in Orange County, you never know who's going to be on the street corner."

The Orange County Sheriff's Office said they will continue to use similar decoys throughout the holiday season.

[sandertheshark]

I'd love to know what these cops did to get assigned to stand on the street in an elf costume for two hours.

[giant_mtb]

*sigh*

[J86]

pricks

[Champ]

Saw a speedtrap here today, the cops dressed as land surveyers with the orange traffic vest and the laser tripods but with a radar gun on the top of it.

[J86]

Saw a speedtrap here today, the cops dressed as land surveyers with the orange traffic vest and the laser tripods but with a radar gun on the top of it.

see, that's just not sporting.  It'd be like if we were speeding in stealth-fighter cars.  Takes all the fun out of it!

[dazzleman]

Man, think of how lame it would be to get a ticket from a f-ing elf....   That would be almost as bad as getting ticketed for going 1 mph over the speed limit by a cop on a bicycle....

That would definitely not be a ticket with bragging rights attached to it....

[rohan]

I'd love to know what these cops did to get assigned to stand on the street in an elf costume for two hours.

Volunteer.



That's some funny stuff right there.  I love it.

[rohan]

see, that's just not sporting.? It'd be like if we were speeding in stealth-fighter cars.? Takes all the fun out of it!

No that's the text book definition of sporting.

[dazzleman]

Volunteer.



That's some funny stuff right there.? I love it.

If I were an LEO, I'd probably volunteer for that duty.  It would be great to see the look on the motorists' faces when I walked up in an elf costume to ask for their license and registration... :P

[dazzleman]

see, that's just not sporting.? It'd be like if we were speeding in stealth-fighter cars.? Takes all the fun out of it!

Hah, all's fair in love and war....

[BartsSVO]

I think this is the same department that's had cops disguised as vagrants or even hiding inside boxes to write tickets.

It just goes to show how incredibly misguided traffic enforcement has become. You probably can't get a cop to respond to a property crime short of having your house broken into or your car stolen, but they've got plenty of time and manpower to dress up and write speeding tickets. 

[Catman]

I think this is the same department that's had cops disguised as vagrants or even hiding inside boxes to write tickets.

It just goes to show how incredibly misguided traffic enforcement has become. You probably can't get a cop to respond to a property crime short of having your house broken into or your car stolen, but they've got plenty of time and manpower to dress up and write speeding tickets. 

I'm not sure where you live but we respond to non priority calls in a short amount of time and priority calls within a few minutes at the most, usually with multiple units. 

[dazzleman]

I'm not sure where you live but we respond to non priority calls in a short amount of time and priority calls within a few minutes at the most, usually with multiple units.?

My local department generally responds within 5 minutes to a priority (non-emergency) call.

Burglary reports are considered priority, not emergency.  As it was explained to me, priority generally involves property being in danger, while emergency involves lives being in danger.

I'm guessing a non-priority call is one for which a crime has already taken place, and is not terribly serious.

I think response time varies quite a bit, so you can't make generalizations.  Speed enforcement has its place though.  I once read a study that correlated a  traffic enforcement policies to overall crime, and concluded that localities with a police force that keeps itself high profile through more aggressive traffic enforcement had lower crime rates than those with more laid back forces and lax traffic enforcement.

I'm not sure of cause and effect here -- it could be that the places with the lower crime rates did a lot of traffic enforcement because they had nothing better to do -- but it seems plausible to me that criminals would be more likely to avoid places with a more active police force.

[sandertheshark]

Bergen County Sheriffs set up a checkpoint on NJ Rte. 17 recently to pull over drivers who use an exit lane and then cross the solid white line at the last minute to get around the traffic jam the fuzz created themselves with their damn checkpoint.  Assholes.

[dazzleman]

Bergen County Sheriffs set up a checkpoint on NJ Rte. 17 recently to pull over drivers who use an exit lane and then cross the solid white line at the last minute to get around the traffic jam the fuzz created themselves with their damn checkpoint.? Assholes.

Jersey drivers......

[Raza]

There's a song about the police by some rap group that pretty much sums up my feelings about them.  The group is called the NWG, NUF, NWR, something like that, and the song has something to do with intimate relations.  I can't quite recall...