These seem to be new illustrations of the principle that the police service examination is designed to weed out the competent.

Also, in Arizona police are using new technology that scans license plates and compares them to a list of lawbreakers, and then pulling them over on the spot if they are.

In Florida, police broke down the door of the wrong house, causing the homeowner to fire at them with a shotgun in self defense. He hit two vest wearing police with his shotgun, but the SWAT team that entered (thinking they were raiding a drug dealer) riddled his house with semiautomatic fire but thankfully didn't hit anyone (two adults, two teens).

I saw this while I was in Germany, I was appalled.

And I also figured it had to be something less than legitimate.

"The policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder." --Richard J. Daly

Except in NYC and Rancho Cordova, where the policeman is now there to create disorder.

In the Rancho Cordova case: i can easily imagine, say, being late to a final, or an airplane flight, or something, as a result of the fact that the police officer decided to stop me to reward me with an unwanted starbucks card.

I wonder if, theoretically speaking, you could sue the police department for damages caused as a result of being late for something because you were stopped without legal justification?

In one discussion on this NY police 'sting,' people suggested running a sousveillance version. Make up 20 or 40 wallets or purses- ones with a realistic amount of cash and/or devices- and give them to cops. See how many come back to their owner intact.

If I found a purse, I'd assume that the owner is quite possibly close by (that they just left the station) and could be reached with a few minutes of phoning. I'll also assume that any nearby cop wouldn't have time to make those calls. Because of that latter fact I'd not want to just hand the purse over without helping out first. But not, I guess, in NYC.

--------
* devices for purses might include cell phones, small cameras, flash drives, usb headsets.

When I was in college, I worked at one of the campus lost-and-found offices. The campus police used to give *us* lost items that were turned in to them -- our offices were right next door, and we had the time to track down the owners.

I don't think there are many circumstances when I'd assume that the policeman was the logical person to give a lost item to. The station manager, the store manager -- if I handed it in to an authority figure, I'd go with them. And that's assuming the lost item didn't include a handy cell phone with a "Home" entry to try calling.

(Tangent: it's a really good idea to make sure your cell has some entry like "My work number" or "Home" or "If found please call" on it. It makes it a lot easier to track you down than a cell phone full of entries like "John" and "BootyDawg" and "K. Chuzzlewit".)

As I said in the Boing Boing thread: I cannot believe that Starbucks knew that the cops were going to start forcing their gift cards on people -- and, whether or not it was okayed by some clueless soon-to-be-former Starbucks employee, the company is surely putting a stop to it as I speak.

I cannot imagine a more effective way to kill a brand. It would literally be better (albeit marginally so) to have the Unibomber turn out to be a Starbucks drinker.

Kathryn #6: I really like the idea of turning the tables on this idiocy.

I hate what I see this country becoming. I HATE it.

Do we have a nationwide problem recruiting people of normal intelligence for police work?

Just to be fair, I'm sure these policies weren't invented by ordinary police officers, and equally sure there are probably quite a few officers who agree with us about how stupid the policies are.

On the other hand, here's a disgrace which I bet required lack of judgement and decency up and down the chain of command.

The Rancho Cordova story amazes me. (The NYC one too, but that seems a much more comprehensible form of unlawful idiocy.) I've read that the two things cops hate most are domestic disputes and random traffic pull-overs. The former because an abused wife will often turn on the cops trying to arrest her husband. The latter because it's just so unpredictable -- the guy you think you're pulling over for having a broken tail-light could also have a trunk full of cocaine and a pistol on the seat next to him.

Two things.

The NYC Transit Authority recently ran a little test on themselves. They had various people hand over "lost" items to various Transit employees. Something like three out of 27 items ever made it to the lost and found.

Also, NYPD has been running commercials "If you see something, say something", exhorting citizens to alert the police to suspicious packages. The commercial goes on to say "Since (some date) "x" many people have seen something and said something". I'm dying to know out of all those packages the cops were sent to investigate, how many times was there anything bad there.

Who thinks this stuff up? Are they retarded? Do we have a nationwide problem recruiting people of normal intelligence for police work?

Cops. Yes. And it's complicated - smart will not get you promoted quick, ruthlessness, self aggrandizement and backstabbing will.

I don’t know about you, but if I found a wallet on the sidewalk, the first thing to occur to me would probably not be to pester a scary-looking, armed-to-the-teeth New York cop about it.

If you see something, say nothing!

John L@#2: That second case is here in Minnesota, actually. Well, could be a lookalike.

Nancy at #10, actually, according to the AP story, the Rancho Cordova idea originated with a traffic officer.

If I found a wallet, I'd pick it up, take it home, and look up the phone number of the person whose driver's license was in the wallet. Then I'd call them, and arrange to return the wallet. It would never occur to me to give it to a cop. I guess I'll avoid trying to be a good citizen while I'm in NYC next week.

There is, in fact, a nationwide shortage of people who both want to become police officers and are capable of meeting the requirements. Every city in the Bay Area is constantly hiring, but something over 70% of Academy candidates wash out either in the training program or in their first year on duty.

Welcome to the Idiocracy.

(It's not too late to emigrate to friendly, peaceful Scandinavia! Do it now, before it becomes illegal.)

Yngve@18: It is for some of us. At least, the last few times I've checked out rules for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, I'm too old (or under-educated, or whatever; my main loss of points on their rating system is due to being over 50, though).

Haven't checked Scandinavia though. And I'm not actually that eager to give up and get out.

As for Rancho Cordova, sure, good idea, what could possibly go wrong?

"Make that cappucino a decaf; I've just been tased."

The Rancho Cordoba thing:

This reminds me of a PR attempt by the Hell's Angels a good number of years ago. They had a bunch of business cards made up that said, "You've been aided by a Hell's Angel. When we do right, no one remembers. When we do wrong, no one forgets."

They were going to go around helping random motorists fix flat tires and so on.

Now imagine you're a citizen on a lonely road, fixing your flat or checking a map or some such. Here comes a bunch of bikers in leathers, looking like, y'know, Hell's Angels. They circle around and pull up behind you. What's your next move, citizen?

As you might expect, it all ended in sadness and the Hell's Angels never did get their good publicity.

cofax@17:

I know one person who tried for months to get through the hiring process for the Oakland P.D. - not even to get hired, but to get to the tests which would theoretically tell them whether they could hire her. They kept cancelling the tests or rescheduling and not telling her. Indirect way of not hiring women, or sheer incompetence? Either way, she's got another job, and I've got a lot less patience for police departments which claim to be understaffed.

Do we have a nationwide problem recruiting people of normal intelligence for police work?

When police officers in Conyers, GA see a car with valuables left in plain view, they'll tag it with a huge yellow sticker advising drivers to take better security measures.

So, to answer your question: Yes.

I was in the jury pool in New York City for one of these cases, approximately two years ago.

From the questions being asked of the potential jurors, I got a pretty good sense of the facts of the case and the lines of argument: a young woman had picked up a purse at a department store (H&M, I think) and left the store with it. The purse was part of a sting operation (by the store? by the cops?) and so the young woman was arrested. It didn't seem as if those events were in dispute--I believe there was even security-cam footage--and the defense attorney was pushing the "Did you ever return found property? Did you do it immediately, or did you bring it home to deal with it?" angle. I don't know how the case turned out--always a frustration when one doesn't make it onto the actual jury.

Personally, if I'm at a place of business, like a department store or a restaurant, and I found a bag or a wallet, I'd turn it in to a clerk or a greeter. If I found a wallet or a phone on a park bench, I'd probably take it to track down the owner (maybe immediately on my cell, depending on whether I was in a rush and how much detective work was required from the wallet's contents). If I found something more cumbersome (like a larger bag) on a park bench, I'd probably leave it there, hoping the owner would return soon. If I saw an abandoned bag in the subway, I'd alert a token clerk on the "if you see something, say something" principle. I find it hard to imagine a situation where I would turn in lost property to a cop, though; it just doesn't seem like the most effective move. What are they supposed to do with a handbag while walking the beat?

I know what it is. NYPD has been infiltrated by Discordian Terrorists. Prove me wrong!

It's annoying, patronizing, and authoritarian for a cop to be "rewarding" me for my good driving. The only "reward" I want from a cop is to be left the hell alone.

It's been my experience that a number of inadequate projects and programs are developed by individuals seeking recognition they can't obtain through other means and are often approved by those who have succeeded in proving the Peter Principle.

As to the wrongful entry and the link to the wrongful detention, it appears that Nixon's No Knock policy was merely a hint at what was to come and we knew it then. I still recall a shootout between a gun collector in his home and the police who entered without knocking or identifying themselves. One would have thought such incidents then would have been engraved in stone as lessons in what not to do.

Unfortunately, we get people into position who don't understand those lessons and whine until the current lawmakers give in and allow them more power only to see them make the same mistakes again. Then they just can't understand why it happened and conclude that our Constitution is at fault and needs to be loosened even more.

It's really not authoritarian for law enforcement to reward as well as punish; while this specific example is, uh, quite stupid, I could imagine a more sensible program like: don't get any traffic convictions, and you go in the draw to win $500 of petrol. (Or whatever)

Swift seemed to think it'd be good if the law didn't only interact with citizens in a punishing capacity, and I felt he made some good arguments. I certainly don't think it's authoritarian. Patronising? Depends on the program. Annoying? Depends on the program. But there's no intrinsic reason why law enforcement shouldn't indulge in some positive reinforcement.

These are not stupid operations, pointless stunts dreamed up by the morons in charge of these local police forces or departments, they're just daily little demonstrations that say "we're watching you, so you better keep in line".

"Pulling over good driver" campaigns aren't new. Up here the Edmonton Police Service carried one out in 2001. Instead of $5 Starbucks certificates, the cops gave out a total of 10 "tickets" for a dinner-for-two at a not-inexpensive local restaurant. I don't recall any huge outcry over it, but a certificate for around $60 is likely a better tension reliever than a free coffee.

Dan@23: The EPS is also working on stickers for cars with valuables, but I think they're trying to make small transparent ones to put in the driver's field of vision. They already make huge yellow cards that people can put in their windows announcing that all valuables have already been removed.

Lydy@16: I'd do much the same thing, except I'd probably try and call them then and there (cell phones are useful, after all)

Or I'd try and find the Lost and Found.

Whyever would I go up to a cop who's just going to direct me to the Lost and Found anyway?

Keir @ #28: But there's no intrinsic reason why law enforcement shouldn't indulge in some positive reinforcement.

If "positive reinforcement" requires pulling someone over, THERE DAMN WELL IS!

In Boston, just call the bomb squad. They'll be happy to blow the object up.

Lila #32: My goodness, hear, hear. If I get pulled over, I go through a whole lot of unpleasant emotions, intensified in this case by the fact that I don't know why I got pulled over, and I've seen that video of the guy getting tasered because he didn't sign the ticket he didn't understand. So I'm freaking out. Until, that is, the cop laughs, tells me I'm on candid camera, and gives me a coupon for a small coffee I can use to calm my nerves. Thanks a lot, asshole. Positive reinforcement, where are you?

Lila has hit the nail on the head. Pull me over and I'm not happy. I'm annoyed (if I've been popped for something I did) or pissed off (if I wasn't doing anything wrong {e.g. the fix-it ticket from a cop who mistook a damaged running light for a bum-turn signal. Cost me time and energy, to get a non-violation fixed, after all, all I had to do was go to the inspection station, prove that my turn signal worked [thus "correcting" the violation] and pay the $10 inspection fee}).

If the reward for my good driving was substantial, it might make up for my adreneline rush, and the pain of righteous indignation thwarted, but a $5 Starbuck's card... nope.

My time is worth more than that.

Even if I wasn't made late, I would be mightily peeved to be pulled over for a measely Starbucks card. (I have GERD and can't drink coffee anyways.)

On the other hand, it probably takes less time to hand over the card than to run a license and give a ticket. But still, there is the annoyance of having to get back into traffic and all that.

#28: "It's really not authoritarian for law enforcement to reward as well as punish"

It's authoritarian because it asserts that it's the place of law enforcement to reward law-abiding behavior. If Swift thought this was a good idea, then I suppose Swift thought a bit of authoritarianism was a good idea.

It's inappropriate in precisely the same way as it'd be inappropriate for the security guard at my office building to write up his thoughts on my work habits and invite me to discuss it with him next time I pass his station.

This isn't a subject in which I'm interested in his opinion. He doesn't report to me, I don't report to him, and unless he spots me trying to smuggle valuable equipment out of the building beneath my coat, he needs to keep his hands to himself.

Dan@ 23: Oh, wow. The thieves should send the Conyers police department a holiday card for highlighting all the easy grab cars for them.

Re: #10. Just scrolled through the comments following Erla Lillendahl's blog account of her treatment at the hands of immigration/security people--what's with the attention from the Ron Paul enthusiasts? It's hard to believe that they all spontaneously noted this story and showed up to extend their sympathy and, oh by the way, mention that this would never happen in a Ron Paul administration. It's creepier than the obligatory "you did the crime, now do the time" sphincters.

Laertes's #37 is absolutely correct. The police are not our mentors or guides. The very idea that it's appropriate for them to be in the business of programmatically "rewarding good behavior" is grotesque. Good God.

This isn't to say that it's impossible or wrong for police to engage in acts of mentoring. A cop who forms a personal relationship with a troubled neighborhood kid and winds up pointing the kid in more wholesome directions -- that's a cop who's also acting as a member of his or her community, and it's a big win all around. (For one thing, much of the worst police abuse happens because the cops in question feel no personal connection to the communities they're policing.) But the police are public servants, entrusted with powers and charged with responsibilities. They are not our parents and we are not their children. Police who have lost track of this fact are police who have lost their way.

I want to revise & extend that last point, re authoritarianism.

It's a little bit authoritarian to even suggest that it's the place of law enforcement to reward law-abiding behavior. (That is, with some reward above and beyond not having to interact with them, which is all the reward I want.)

What's really creepy about this is that it involves a gratuitous exercise of authority. The ability to activate special lights and noisemaking devices and cause a minding-his-own-business motorist to pull over is a pretty heavy power. Using it for such trivial ends is a bit sinister, as if the intent is to condition citizens to accept a firm hand on the reins.

As one commenter at boingboing pointed out, why not just note the licence number and mail the card? We already have that technology.

Hell. If I'd seen #40, I'd never have posted #41. Now I like #7 better without my later additions.

Starbucks coffee must be cheaper in Rancho Cordova than in NYC. If I found a $5 Starbucks card here I'd probably give it to a homeless person - maybe he/she could buy a pastry with it. A pastry AND a cup of coffee? Probably over the limit.

I just wrote a letter to Bloomberg. Among other things, I pointed out that every time I have turned in cash that didn't have identifying information with it, when I've checked back after the prescribed time period (after which the found property belongs to the finder), there was suddenly no longer any record that I'd ever turned it in. Hmmm, I wonder where it went?

The point of the Rancho Cordova gig is obvious, and I expect it to spread rapidly.

"Well, your honor, we were just trying to reward this guy for driving well, and then we just happened to see something that led us to search the car."

Grr. I can guarantee you that if I found a wallet, handing it to a cop would not occur to me, not because I'm dishonest but because it doesn't strike me as a "go to a cop immediately" situation.

Keir, #28: This is actually a very bad application of a valid principle: that people respond better to positive reinforcement than to negative. For example, just about every "how to be a better manager" article stresses that you should reward people when they do things right (yes, even if that's "just doing their job," the occasional kind word does wonders) rather than only coming down on them when they do something wrong.

The important difference here is that managers know their employees, and vice versa. J. Random Driver doesn't know that cop who pulled him over, and has no reason to think that this is going to be anything but an unpleasant experience.

Now, if the cops really wanted to run an effective positive-reward campaign with the Starbucks cards, they'd do it like this: (1) Cop sees driver do something meritorious; (2) cop dictates time/date, license # and a quick description of the circumstances into a voice-operated recorder; (3) every week or so, cop gets a fresh tape and turns in the old one to (4) the transcribing pool, where the description gets typed up and (5) mailed to the license holder with the $5 gift card. NB: The envelope should prominently say something like, "The $CITY Police Department thanks you for being a considerate driver." Driver gets the gift card without the inconvenience and hassle of being pulled over, AND gets the warm-fuzzy of being rewarded for doing something smart/nice. Now that would go a long way toward encouraging good driving behavior!

The cops here ran a Good Driver Reward Campaign with one of the local radio stations. They'd phone in the make and model and registration number of the car, the radio announcer would announce it and give the driver in question tickets to the pictures. (I assume identities were cross-checked with rego).

It was a charming bit of Christmas cheer, not least because it didn't stop anyone doing whatever they were doing. The idea of cops pulling over good drivers, rahter than, say, targeting bad ones, sems a litle skew-whiff.

For a while they were periodicallly setting up "are you wearing your seatbelt" traffic check. Basically they blocked the road (in this casse it was State Line just north of 79th St.) and stopped EVERYONE. They routed drivers into a parking lot with four 'lanes,' gave everyone with their seatbelt buckled a McDs Free sausage biscuit coupons and I guess warnings to people not wearing them.

A lady in front of me may have gotten more. The back of her car was slathered in anti-abortion bumper stickers but her two small children were walking around in the back seat...

And they let people know they were going to do this. ahead of time.

Erik @45:

I would accuse you of cynicism if the same idea had not occurred to me as soon as I heard about this crackpot scheme.

Sorry, but my suspicious attitude towards people in general would prevent me from turning in a wallet to a cop on the street beat. I can already see the officer smirking and giving a, "thank you for being a good citizen..." then pocketing the cash before calling the wallet's owner. If the wallet's owner is even notified.

There are too many situational statistics and variables to throw into the soup kettle to say why a person would or would not turn in a wallet at any given time. Sorry, but if I found a purse or a wallet sitting around a NY subway I wouldn't be caught dead thumbing through it to locate an owner. I'd pocket it just for my own safety.

The law is not a system designed to test moral character and fibre of it's citizens. Instead of protecting the people these cops have created grand larsonists.

If I ever get pulled over for good driving it better be more than a $5.00 gift card. Venti Iced Caramel Macchiatos with an "add shot" run close to $6.

Erik @45 points out a potential darkside to this "PR" tactic: it allows for profiling under the guise of "PR and Goodwill."

Then again, I just don't like authority figures.

I'd been meaning to blog about the purse/wallet "sting" combined with this bit of news to show what a no-win situation it really is:

Metropolitan Transit ... had subway riders turn 26 personal items to transit authorities, then tracked how many of the items made it back to the rightful owners. It didn't turn out so well. Only three of the 26 were properly returned. ... The report said that the transit agency's lost property unit received more than 8,000 items each year and that only about 18 percent wound up back in the hands of their owners.

Odd, I've lost my wallet twice (careless, I know) and both times I got a call from the local police station telling me it had been handed in. Is this a difference in how the US and UK regards its police?

Mind you, the one time I found a lost wallet, I checked the contents for bank cards and turned it in at the bank. I just figured they'd have the address of their customer and would be able to send it on to them or just phone them to come collect it.

TroyLiss, when KDays came in Edmonton each year, the cops would randomly pull over one vehicle from out of province when coming up Highway 2, and reward those folks with several free days in town: hotel, meals, events (mostly around KDays), and probably more. I don't know if they still do it, especially since there is no KDays anymore.

D

Last week when I was in Tokyo, I found a wallet lying on the street just outside a convenience store. Since I neither speak nor read Japanese (gods, was I glad to get back home where I was no longer illiterate, that SUCKED), I followed my first instinct, which was to bring it to the cashier in the convenience store. All I needed was a bit of sign language and the cashier understood exactly what was going on. I'm pretty sure she assured me she'd keep it in case the owner came back looking for it. (I figured the wallet's owner would probably retrace his steps trying to find it, and end up back there eventually...)

If the same thing had happened in the US, I would've looked inside for ID and called the owner, and arranged to get it back to them myself. Bringing the cops into it would never be part of the equation.

What pisses me off about this: how many people who would have returned my stuff aren't going to pick it up if they see it lying there. How many people who aren't those people ride the train during rush hour. How this means that nothing I lose on the train will ever be returned again.

Rancho Cordova is pretty much local for me, so here's some extra details:

—The cards were paid for by "local businesses." No idea if Starbucks was one of those.

—They've been having a lot of pull-over campaigns in recent months, but most of them are for warnings about seatbelts or the like.

—Several CHP officers have been killed in the line of duty within the last year, at least one shot in an unsolved traffic stop murder less than a year ago... in Rancho Cordova. (Two of the others have been solved.)

—The local newsradio types' take on it is that the Starbucks card is for caffeine to restart your heart after getting pulled over.

—When I was growing up, the way the local fire department would spread some holiday cheer is to dress up on of the engines and take Santa out after dark to pass out candy canes. That sort of thing sounds like a better idea to me— it's hard to be freaked out by a cop car if it's got Christmas lights and a red nose on the hood.

Come on, people. If you've got the license plate you've got an address, so mailing cards with a good driving note is a better way.

The police in NYC (and here in VA) have been leaving decoy bags in restaurants and the like for a while (and putting signs up about it). The thing is, in a restaurant, there is a "default finder" (the staff) who can be expected to recover genuinely lost items.

If the police are doing this on the street, that's bad news. Its one thing to have the police return lost property, it's another to say that nobody else is allowed to deal with lost property without going through the police, purportedly "lest they fail to return it". And as noted above, the police in NYC are not in good odor with much of the populace these days....

#53: Turning it in to the bank may or may not be helpful. I accidentally left my driver's license at my bank not too long ago, in the course of some transaction that required ID. When I came back to the bank a day later to pick it up (after calling to verify that they indeed had it and I hadn't done something even more scatterbrained), they informed me that I couldn't have it back unless I showed picture ID.

Fortunately I had my photo-containing work badge, which they accepted. After I got the license back from them (so they couldn't decide I was too much of a smarty to get it back), I asked why they couldn't just look at the photo on the license to verify my identity. Isn't that the reason we have photos on them in the first place?

They responded that comparing one photo ID to another photo ID is more verifiable.

I managed to refrain from asking them what would have happened if neither photo looked like me.

Long story short (too late!), they may not return the wallet if it contains all of someone's verifiable photo ID.

Amy #59: They wouldn't let you have your photo ID back without photo ID? Goodness. What bank was that? When I worked at a bank, if someone left their license, we'd immediately look up the person's account information from their name and address and call them, and if that didn't work, we'd use the phone book, and if that didn't work, we'd wait a week and then mail it to the address on the license.

Others have said most of what I was thinking, but three things struck me beyond all that:

Re. the Starbucks cards, isn't it illegal (maybe just in some states) to pull someone over without a legal cause?

Re. the decoy lost items, is entrapment no longer illegal anywhere in the U.S.?

No one ever told me cops were also the lost & found. Quite the contrary; I got the impression cops were supposed to have more important things to do and that folks like us were supposed to be Good Samaritans.

Ethan #60: It's only the largest bank in the US in terms of deposits. I don't know if this was a corporate policy or just some oddity of my local branch.

Perhaps all responsible honest citizens should immediately start handing all found objects in to their local cop-on-the-beat for safekeeping.

A crate of guinea pigs would be semi-canonical but would probably be hard on the guinea pigs.

We were on vacation a couple of months ago in a small town in Vermont. I stopped at an ATM, and then we walked a couple of blocks to have dinner. While at the table, a couple approached us, and the man asked us if I'd left my ATM card at the bank.

I said I had, and he said he'd recovered it for me and turned it in at the desk of his B&B, which was walking distance from both the ATM and the restaurant.

So I thanked them both and then -- thinking about what the right thing was to do -- I asked the waiter to let me buy the couple either dessert or drinks, their choice.

They thanked me as they left, and we left later. I felt very satisfied and civilized about the whole thing.

When I got to the couple's B&B, I identified myself to the clerk, and she looked chagrined. Seems she'd called the bank and they'd instructed her to shred my ATM.

She gave me the little piece of plastic that had the bank's phone number on it, though.

Sigh. So much for being civilized.

I agreed that this scheme was stupid, so pointing out that it was dumb as a response to my post is redundant. Vian gives an example of this sort of thing done better.

And, yeah, society-expressed-by-the-State rewards good behaviour all the time -- that's what the George Cross, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Legion d'Honneur are. Oddly, no-one thinks that the Legion d'Honneur is a creeping instrument of state tyranny. This may be because it isn't.

There is no reason to propose that actions similar to, but extending further in scale, the various civilian decorations will lead to the Ingsoc State.

#63 Joel Polowin: I love that story so, so much. My mom read it to me when I was little, both of us giggling like crazy, and just now reading it again I laughed until I teared up and my abs twinged. I've been buying random books of American folklore to find it again. Thank you.

Madeline @ 66: If you decide you want "Pigs Is Pigs" in book form, you can find it in this anthology, along with a multitude of other wonderful things.

Amy, #62: BofA? Well, no surprise there. Their idea of "customer service" appears to be modeled largely on To Serve Man.

Ulrika @ 25:

I know what it is. NYPD has been infiltrated by Discordian Terrorists. Prove me wrong!

Well, I haven't heard from my cell on the topic, but it could be the Justified Ancients of Mu.

NelC @ 53: I can see that happening in Britain. There's just something about lethally armed cops that puts a little hurdle up against approaching them for non-lethal situations. It's not that I haven't ever done so, in the States; it's that there's that slight nervousness to it, the smile-a-little-harder thing. And I imagine that if I weren't white, it would just be a complete no-go.

--

I've had a lost wallet returned by the community before -- I dropped it along the street and someone brought it into a baker's shop.

Currently I'm dealing with a very nasty foul-up at Paypal. They don't want to let me log in, since I logged in last month from China and that's suspicious. So now they need to verify my account -- by having me follow instructions they're sending in an automatic letter to an address where I haven't lived in three years.

And they still haven't responded to my email support request.

I'd just stop using the account, but I sent myself eighty dollars in it (sending cash to the States and having someone else send it to my account seems to be the most reliable way to put cash in my bank from here) and I'm not rich enough to kiss the eighty bucks goodbye.

One of the news reports about the NYPD wallet/purse sting operation is that they've begun putting credit cards into the bait so they can bring felony charges.

A.J. Luxton #69: I don't know about PayPal, but I've had some luck with other bureaucratic foulups by simply hanging on the phone, patiently repeating, "Let me speak with your supervisor," or variations thereof, until I reached a human being with sufficient rank that he or she was allowed to use common sense.

There was the time, for instance, where in order to change my mailing address over the phone, I had to give some "security information" which included my date of birth. No problem, you'd think -- except, that's when I found out someone had committed a typo when entering my date of birth into their records. I got told, "No, that's not the correct date of birth. Sorry, we can't accept an address change." Moreover, and this had me wanting to kill a systems analyst somewhere, their system would not accept any other validating information. They said they could send me a letter... Hm. Slight logic error there: I was *moving*.

It took half a day to resolve, and covered at least three continents, but I eventually reached a woman who was permitted to believe that I was in fact me, and really did know when I was born better than their database.

I think it would be a really wonderful expression of everything that makes America great if they instead stopped you and then actually made you some coffee right there! and they could heat it with a Tazer. Maybe a modified Tazer... I'm hoping that MAKE or instructables has some tutorials on how to mod a Tazer into a coffee brewer.

Please construct your own dialogue for this scenario.

Note Above: I tend to spell it Tazer because I think the Z makes it sound so much more electrifying.

Anyway I think some enterprising municipality should try to combine all offenses into one, so:

They wait until there is a bad accident in the area, then they put the bodies of any traumatized people out as decoys. If you stop and go to the bodies and touch them in any way they tase you for attempted theft and sexual assault and put your data into a public database for later murder by outraged citizens.

If you drive by they stop you and give you a congratulatory coffee certificate for being a good citizen, but only after checking if your car has any warrants on it.

If your car has warrants they engage in high-speed pursuit, drive you off the road and use you as a decoy to see if anyone stops and checks out your body.

Actually, I wrote a poem about this once.

"No, no, comrade! We haven't come to take you away to Siberia! We just happened to be passing your house at 0300 and thought we would drop by! Free beetroot?"

What if cars could make a chime sound as well as having horns? If you liked how a fellow driver treated you, you could indicate "Thank you".

Nancy Lebovitz @75: The Car Talk guys have brought up the idea of an 'idiot light'; something you'd flash to communicate to the other drivers "Yeah, I realize I just made a bonehead manoeuvre; sorry about that".

A book on industrial design with a wonderful title: Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles.

Personally, I can understand why a lot of folks don't trust the police. I was pulled over late one night in Virginia. The officer wanted to know why I was driving the speed limit instead of going faster. He then asked if I understood that I could. Immediately, I understood exactly what he really intended to do, so I answered no. He wasn't prepared for that and after a brief hesitation released me to continue. Of course I continued to observe the limit. I wasn't going to give him the opportunity to use radar in order to ticket me and fulfill his quota.

Another time, also in Virginia, a state trooper pulled me over for speeding after tailgating my vehicle for two miles at the point where I found a break in the traffic to my right that was large enough for me to slip into because I thought he was trying to get past. When we appeared before the judge, he stated that he first observed me when I was stopped at a toll booth. The judge interrupted him at that point to ask if that was when he decided to ticket me for speeding and the officer actually admitted yes. The case was thrown out of court.

Are these the only incidents I've been involved in? Not on your life. Consequently, I think that pulling over people for driving good is a bad idea. As to the comment about the awards given out by the President, Congress, and other governmental bodies, those tend to be for exceptional contributions to the public good, not for good driving which is an ordinary expectation or ought to be. Likewise, I have to agree with the statement made that it will eventually be used to provide probable cause. Even though authorities might deny that will ever happen, I just don't believe it. When the seat belt law was first passed in Virginia, it was stated then by the lawmakers that it wouldn't be considered probable cause to pull anyone over, that it would only be applicable if someone was pulled over for some other traffic offense. That didn't last long. Now if a cop thinks your seat belt isn't in use, they can pull you over. So I believe that any reward program will likewise be twisted into a tool to be misused for providing probable cause.

Confession: A few years ago I was out with a friend and we found £30 in cash lying on the floor in broad daylight at an (outdoor) bus terminus (Kingston upon Thames, if that means anything to you). We picked it up before it blew away and then stood around for ten minutes looking to see if we could see anybody who seemed to be looking for something, but no joy.

So we treated it as a case of the universe balancing out (well, I've lost cash before) and went and spent the money on lunch. I felt guilty that the owner could well have been a pensioner (who couldn't afford to lose it), as they're the most likely people in this country to a) pay for items with cash and b) take the bus.

On the other hand...I didn't feel that handing in cash to anybody was likely to get it back to its rightful owner.

We were originally suspicious that it was some kind of sting (and scared to pick it up), as it was SO out in the open; I guess if it had been, we'd have been arrested. I'm not sure what that would have achieved.

Of course, they could draw a circle around the wallets; THAT would be interesting.

If a cop pulled me over and made me late to wherever I was going, and then presented me with a Starbuck's gift card, I'd be sorely tempted to suggest that he do something anatomically unpleasant with it.

I'd feel the same way if he offered me a gift card to someplace that serves good coffee.

A.R. Yngve @ 18: The thought actually has crossed my mind a couple dozen times. I'm sure I still have relatives there, too, as every one of my ancestors (six great grandparents and one grandmother) who came to the U.S. came from Sweden. Specifically - I think - the area around Stockholm.

it occurred to me that the police rewarding people for driving correctly wanted to be regarded like the German police in Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men on the Bummel: (1900)

In Germany to-day one hears a good deal
concerning Socialism, but it is a Socialism that would only be
despotism under another name. Individualism makes no appeal to the
German voter. He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and
regulated in all things. He disputes, not government, but the form
of it. The policeman is to him a religion, and, one feels, will
always remain so. In England we regard our man in blue as a
harmless necessity. By the average citizen he is employed chiefly
as a signpost, though in busy quarters of the town he is considered
useful for taking old ladies across the road. Beyond feeling
thankful to him for these services, I doubt if we take much thought
of him. In Germany, on the other hand, he is worshipped as a
little god and loved as a guardian angel. To the German child he
is a combination of Santa Clans and the Bogie Man. All good things
come from him: Spielplatze to play in, furnished with swings and
giant-strides, sand heaps to fight around, swimming baths, and
fairs. All misbehaviour is punished by him. It is the hope of
every well-meaning German boy and girl to please the police. To be
smiled at by a policeman makes it conceited. A German child that
has been patted on the head by a policeman is not fit to live with;
its self-importance is unbearable.

And the problem with that, as Jerome says, is

The German idea of it would appear to be:
"blind obedience to everything in buttons." It is the antithesis
of the Anglo-Saxon scheme; but as both the Anglo-Saxon and the
Teuton are prospering, there must be good in both methods.
Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be
exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with
him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance
something goes wrong with the governing machine. But maybe his
method has the advantage of producing a continuous supply of good
governors; it would certainly seem so.

Maybe it's the place, and maybe just chance, but a couple of weeks ago I was standing in a line somewhere or other and, completely unaware, dropped a $5 bill on the ground. A minute or two later someone tapped me on the shoulder, asked me if I'd dropped it, and handed it to me with a smile.

Still, my inclination is the same as everyone else's on turning things into the police: it doesn't occur to me. Some years ago I found a wallet in the park while walking my dog quite early one morning. There was no cash and no credit cards, but there was a driver's license, so when I got back home* I called the number on the license. The wallet belonged to a teenage girl; she and her mother drove over to get the wallet. Sadly, they were fairly sure it had been taken by the girl's boy "friend"; there had been a credit card and $20 in the wallet when she lost it. Sad when you can trust a random stranger more than a lover.

Freaked out much by being pulled over? In 1970, I was living in Westchester County, NY, home of what was then a much-buttoned-down IBM. I was freshly out of the Army, had let my hair grow for more than a year since discharge, and pretty much dressed, acted, and lived the part of the urban hippie. Driving through a small town in the IBM commuter belt I was pulled over by a lone cop on foot. Of course, the stoner reflex was screaming "act straight!" even though I wasn't high, and coffee was the last thing I needed to deal with the adrenaline rush. The cop commandeered me and my car and had me drive him to the scene of some crime or other**, then left me to go on my way. I hyperventilated for awhile before moving on.

* this was before the Age of Portable Phones
** I never found out what was happening there

meredith@55: the convenience store clerk certainly turned it over to the local police box. Lost and Found is like a national hobby in Japan, it's amazing. I've lost my commuter pass (a few times), my camera, and a bag full of clothes, usually on the subway, and it always comes back to me. I know someone who has had less than 50 dollars worth of yen returned to him after leaving it in a bar.

But even in Tokyo, where the police are very honest in this kind of thing, I woudn't give a found item to any random cop on the street, and it might take me a little while to bring it to the koban. I guess from now on I'll never pick up lost items in NYC (maybe in all of America). What a great system we've got there.

Keir@65, do you really think recieving the Presidential Medal of Freedom is anything like the police pulling you over unexpectedy? I expected the old "If you don't have anything to hide, no problem! If you do, you deserve it!" argument, but that's a new one on me.

Mind you, the one time I found a lost wallet, I checked the contents for bank cards and turned it in at the bank. I just figured they'd have the address of their customer and would be able to send it on to them or just phone them to come collect it.

I have had this happen, sort of, twice. What the good samaritans failed to realise was that 1: My bank won't return the wallet to me, and two, the information that the wallet has gone missing causes them to, immediately, cancel my cards.

This was a minor nuisance the first time, and a right pain the in ass the second, as I was going out of town two-days later, which meant I had no way to get at money, save to extract all I thought I might need before hand.

I found out the card was dead after I went back to the restaurant, recovered the wallet, and then tried to use my debit card.

Some comedian (I think it was Gallagher) said that we should have dart guns that shoot those suction cup darts. Whenever you see someone driving like an idiot, you shoot the car. If a cop sees a car with three or more darts, they pull him over and issue a ticket for Driving with Stupidity.

I, too, have had my wallet returned by the UK police, although I have equally returned a wallet I found to its owner. I live in a small town. The police station is open 9-5, Monday to Friday. I'd be still be looking for a policeman.

There are three categories of people totally unfit to comment on anyone's driving - lorry drivers (truckers), taxi drivers and police. 'You're a good driver, sir.' 'How would you know?'

NelC @ 53

May indeed be a UK/USA difference. Last time I found a wallet (in the UK) I (a) Looked up in Yellow Pages and called the appropriate banks/credit card companies so that if the owner called them they could let them know the cards had been found (and stopped, which is irritating, but I'd prefer knowing they had been found if it happened to me); (b) took it to the local police station the next day.

The time before that it was just a bank card, near an ATM, so I asked for directions to the nearest appropriate bank, then posted it through their letter box wrapped in a piece of paper detailing when & where it had been found.

Terry Karney @84

Yes, I know it's annoying to have the cards stopped when you know where they are - but sometimes informing the bank/credit card company is the only thing you can do (no other ID present). If I found a wallet -with- someone's address/telephone details included, obviously I'd try to contact the person.

When I moved to the New York area, I was told the following rules* for living in the Big City:

1. The police are not your friends.
2. Act like nothing is wrong.
3. The police are not your friends.
4. Always look like you know exactly what you're doing, especially if you're lost in a questionable neighborhood.
5. The police are not your friends.
6. The police are not your friends.
7. The police are not your friends.

*Or something like them; it was a long time ago.

Also, I've often surmised that the Good Life entails, among other things, having as few interactions with the police as possible. There are certain limited circumstances in which involving the police is a good move. Finding a wallet on the street is not one of them.

Keir, way to go with the reductio ad absurdum, there.

If you are given, say, the Congressional Medal of Honor, you have prior notice, and are not interrupted in the middle of your daily tasks and given signals which usually mean you have done something bad. Also they feed you a nice lunch.

Differences in context are real differences.

JESR @ 90

Add:
You also are with a group of other people in the same situation, and press (of various descriptions) around you. The award ceremony is in an auditorium, with your family/friends present, too.
I believe you actually are told about it several months ahead of the actual ceremony. (I know someone I can ask about this. They're on vacation until after New Year's, though.)

Russ @ 78

I similarly found a £20 note on the ground near a ticket machine at a small railway station in Greater London. I picked it up, waited a few minutes in case someone came hurrying back looking worried, then took it and used it to pay for photocopying for the small charity (Not-for-Profit) I work for (it's 20p per page at the British Library - i.e. 40 cents!). Partly made up for the £40, barely used, photocopy card I lost there a while back...

#86" There are three categories of people totally unfit to comment on anyone's driving - lorry drivers (truckers), taxi drivers and police. 'You're a good driver, sir.' 'How would you know?'

I have to disagree with the last. British Police Traffic Officers are probably the best trained drivers on the planet.

(disclaimer: I used to have (back when I lived in the UK) a RoSPA silver classification which is basically a Police class 2 license.)

Normal coppers are the usual run of idiots, but the black rats (traffic officers) are damn good. I've been in car on high speed pursuits/deliveries with those guys and they're damn good.

Some years ago, my son's class was discussing why non-white people have a lower opinion of the police than white people. He asked me what I thought and I told him that in my opinion, the opinion of people about the police is dependent almost entirely on how much contact they have had with them. Non-white people on average have had more contact with the police, for whatever reasons, than white people. But it takes only a couple of contacts to lower the average white person's opinion to the same level.

dave #93: Where I live, if I leave my house, I see a cop breaking traffic laws. In fact, if I see a cop use a turn signal, obey signs, go the speed limit, etc., I'm startled because it happens only very rarely.

I nearly got killed by one the other day at a four way stop. I came to a complete stop, looked both ways, saw no one, started to go, and then had to slam on my brakes because the ass was driving so fast down residential streets that I didn't see him until he was on top of me. No sirens, no lights, just zooming down residential streets not stopping at stop signs for the hell of it.

Truck drivers, on the other hand, in my experience tend towards the very very good, though there are of course exceptions.

I turned a found wallet over to the Washington DC police early on a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago. It held a driver's license, credit cards, and other cards but no money. It was probably stolen from the person and dumped in the alley.

Unfortunately though there were clues that the person had moved to this area, nothing in the wallet had a local address or contact information on it. A Web search turned up only old information when the person was a student in California. There was no telephone directory listing under the name--not surprising since many young people don't have landlines these days.

I would have liked to have been able to contact the person to spare them the grief associated with losing a wallet. I hope the police did get in touch with them. Perhaps the person had reported the theft.

The previous time I found a wallet (which also had no local address in it) I was able to track down the person who'd lost it through a local telephone number of a relative written on a scrap of paper in the wallet.

A policeman came to pick up that wallet from me at work. The police warn victims never to meet anyone who contacts them claiming to have found the stolen item.

Yes, I know it's annoying to have the cards stopped when you know where they are - but sometimes informing the bank/credit card company is the only thing you can do (no other ID present). If I found a wallet -with- someone's address/telephone details included, obviously I'd try to contact the person.

Here's the thing which torques me.

My bank will cancel the card, when it's returned to them, and therefore off the streets. That seems a cruel way of being kind. They also won't let me have a second card.

I don't fault the folks at Big Sky (very nice restaurant in SLO, with a great brekkie), though since the address was local on my ID, perhaps they might have waited a couple of minutes to see if I might notice it (I was shopping in town, and noticed it with a moderate rapidity).

I am finding some of the comments in this thread hard to take. Several of the people in my martial arts school are cops. One is a beat officer in San Francisco, one is a homicide investigator in Oakland -- a brutal and thankless job. They are honorable, responsible, intelligent people and they drive with care. Yes, I am sure there are stupid people and bad drivers among the police, but let's not get too carried away here with the negatives.

That said, I agree that both the schemes Patrick comments upon are ridiculous and should be abandoned. Now.

We occasionally get lost wallets turned in to the reference desk at the library where I work. We make an announcement first, in case the owner is still in the library, "Will so-and-so please come to the reference desk." If there's no response, then we try to call them, using the number in their library record, or looking them up in the phone book if necessary.

Recently, someone who found a wallet on the street brought it to us because the only ID was a library card (ours don't have name and address printed on them, just a signature), and he knew we could look up the number and call the owner.

We've also had a local restaurant owner give us lost keys, because they have a library-card key-tag on them.

No police involved in any of these cases.

Terry Karney @97

I think the problem here is that bank personnel are no longer allowed any common sense in interpreting the rules (as in: the cards have been handed in to the bank/police/whoever therefore are not lost and not at risk of being used illegally, but the rules don't allow any other action than cancelling the cards).

As another example, we have a problem with our joint bank account, which was set up before we married and is in my unmarried surname (which I continue to use for daily professional life) and my husband's name. Given a cheque addressed to the two of us as "Mr & Mrs" with the single surname, the bank wouldn't accept it, despite the fact that I brought my passport (bearing my professional name), marriage certificate and wedding photos with me. Yes, I know the rules are to stop money laundering, but I took obvious proof of identity and it still wasn't enough (except that the bank manager recognised us and was just about allowed to verify that I was who I said I was).

Mary Aileen... No police involved in any of these cases.

Tonight on CourtTV, Tales of the Library Police.
"It was an open-and-shut case."

Lizzy L @ 98: Most police officers are dedicated, honest people -- I think. Most of my interactions with them have been positive, though there have been exceptions. But for turning in property I've found..? I know that I am honest; I don't have the same confidence in the next random police officer I happen to see.

And the notion that found items should be brought to an officer on patrol seems bizarre; it would never have occurred to me. I'd have expected a reaction like "What the [] do I look like, a lost-and-found office?" When I've found things like credit cards, bus passes, and wallets, I've tried to find the owner, except in some cases where the item was, say, lying in a parking lot dedicated to a single store. In those cases, I've turned the item in at that place of business, so that the owner had a chance of tracking it back. When I found a not-personally-identifiable property item that looked like it had some value in a drainage ditch, I called the police department to report the find.

The problem with cards that someone has turned in to the bank (or wherever) is that though they are safe from that point, they might have been in the hands of someone dishonest before then. They might have been copied, or enough information copied from them to allow later illegal use.

At the Las Vegas airport, I picked up a black plastic business card holder which I thought had just fallen out of my pocket, as I had one just like it. Later I realized that my card holder was still in my pocket and I had just picked up another which, on closer inspection, had $300 in cash tucked inside it.

Hey! It was Vegas!

Amy @ 59: #53: Turning it in to the bank may or may not be helpful. I accidentally left my driver's license at my bank not too long ago, in the course of some transaction that required ID. When I came back to the bank a day later to pick it up (after calling to verify that they indeed had it and I hadn't done something even more scatterbrained), they informed me that I couldn't have it back unless I showed picture ID.

Fortunately I had my photo-containing work badge, which they accepted. After I got the license back from them (so they couldn't decide I was too much of a smarty to get it back), I asked why they couldn't just look at the photo on the license to verify my identity. Isn't that the reason we have photos on them in the first place?

They responded that comparing one photo ID to another photo ID is more verifiable.

I managed to refrain from asking them what would have happened if neither photo looked like me.

Long story short (too late!), they may not return the wallet if it contains all of someone's verifiable photo ID.

Try this on for size: My wallet was stolen. The perpetrator was later busted shoplifting at Wal-Mart. He showed the arresting officer my photo ID. She took down "his" (my) driver's license information and let him go with an order to appear in municipal court. When he didn't show up, they issued a bench warrant for my arrest. I only learned about this when a copy of the bench warrant showed up in my mailbox...after work hours on a Friday, so I had to wait all weekend before I could go to court to clear it up.

The judge told me I'd have to meet with the arresting officer so she could verify I wasn't the suspect. I asked her why she didn't look at the picture on my driver's license before writing the guy up.

"Oh," she said, "no one looks like their picture."

You know, I've pointed out that this scheme was a dumb idea. I can't be stuffed arguing with people who can't be stuffed reading what I've said. If you think I'm saying this specific scheme was a great idea, you're not paying attention.

I am saying that, contrary to the Patrick and Laertes position, not all schemes which reward people for doing the right thing are `clearly grotesque', or `authoritarian'.

Now, it would appear to me that not all such schemes are `clearly grotesque'; at least, not to me, vian and Lee.

(Vian and Lee, I could be wrong about your position. If so, ignore that last clause.)

Janet, #96: The police warn victims never to meet anyone who contacts them claiming to have found the stolen item.

Ouch. I can see the rationale for this, and it makes me sad. I found a wallet once when I was in college, and called the owner (looked up the name in the phone book), and neither of us ever once considered that there might be any reason for distrust in that situation.

I guess if I find another one, I should treat it like a blind date and suggest meeting at some public location for the return.

dcb, #100: This is not an uncommon problem for women who retain their birth names after marriage. It's made worse by the fact that many times the person who sent the check is a relative who simply REFUSES to use any other form of address, as a way of bludgeoning the uppity woman over the head.

After mulling on the news items in this thread, I've decided that what (most) bothers me about them is that adults are being treated as children. Fairly small children, at that.

With small children we keep an eye out on all of their ordinary behavior*, in part because we don't yet know what a child's ordinary behavior will be. We make rules for children that simply do not account for intentions. If a child is told not to go into the garage alone, then they're not supposed to go into the garage alone. We do not consider if they meant to go in to retrieve laundry or to play with the power tools.

With adults we notice and act on extraordinary behavior, goo