Cops “Fishing” For Revenue By Walking Back and Forth Across the Street, Ticketing Drivers Who Don’t Stop (Video)

Police in Somerville, Massachusetts have a nice little fishing pond set up.

State law says that if there’s a pedestrian in the cross walk, you have to stop.

So, first they have an undercover cop just walking across the street while there’s traffic.

Nearby, a cop sits in a patrol car.

If a car doesn’t stop, the cop pulls the person over and gives them a $200 ticket.

Here’s how it works:

At the end of the video, the guy says, “And that’s a waste of money.”

Only problem is, it isn’t. It’s profitable:

Davis Square in Somerville at lunch time and very few drivers are stopping for people in the crosswalks. It was right there on June 12th that a 90-year-old woman was struck and killed in a crosswalk by a FedEx delivery truck. Partly for that reason, as a video posted on Facebook shows, Somerville police began cracking down at seven locations across the city. Over two weeks in June they wrote almost $40,000 in tickets.

That’s a pile of loot. No wonder they’re setting up this fishing expeditions across the city.

And I’m conflicted. While it does seem shady, they’re enforcing a law that people knowingly break.

Is that worse than taxing people for that money? What do you think?