Cops Are Gleefully Rewarding Law-Abiding Citizens With Free Pizza

In a refreshing change of pace, instead of gunning down people, police officers are in the news for graciously handing out pizza vouchers.

According to CBS, the Denver Police Department has been walking the streets, keeping their guns in their holsters and handing out gift cards for a free Papa John’s pizza. The catch is that they have to spot you obeying the law, according to their judgement.

Papa John’s and Alpine Bank gave the police department 500 of the pizza vouchers that read, “You got caught doing something right.”

Officers are now walking the Denver streets, hunting down citizens who are doing astonishingly lawful deeds, such as using trash cans instead of littering, or using the cross walk instead of jaywalking.

Although you might now see Denver cops roaming around and making nice with people, the department  has been under fire after the controversial shooting of a Native American man named Paul Castaway earlier this July. Police shot and killed Castaway after he “charged at them,” but witnesses and supposed surveillance footage showed a different story than the police department’s.

But, hey. Pizza will fix it.

Maybe Castaway’s shooting wasn’t about race, but it’s still unsettling that in the US, Native Americans join African Americans as the two groups most likely to be killed by law enforcement.

Pizza can probably fix that, too.

The Denver PD could use some good PR right now, but not even the video clip they’re using to promote this does much to help ease tension in the police vs. minorities narrative. Denver has a Hispanic population of 31.7 percent, and an African American population of 11.1 percent, yet it looks like the only people who are doing any good in the clip are, um, kind of white.

But, hey. Free pizza!

It is a neat little deal, though. It shows that if you don’t piss off the police and do things they deem “good,” they’ll kill you with kindness. Just don’t run away when they approach you with the gift card, because if you’re a minority, that can still earn you a swift tackle and baton to the head, or worse.

picthx Denver PD