You are assigned to a walking beat downtown, and every morning you stop into a breakfast shop and have a cup of coffee only. The owner does not charge you. After some citizen complaints about the parking situation in the area, the station has directed you to ticket all illegally parked cars. As you are tagging the cars in front of the breakfast shop, the owner comes out furious and asks what are you doing? He states rather loudly, “I give you free coffee every day and this is how you repay me?”
- How would you respond?
- Was there an implied consent that the free coffee would be reimbursed by granting favors to the owner?
- On a larger scale, could this lead to a perception of corruption of the officer looked the other way or warned customers that if they were parked illegally and didn’t move their cars they would be ticketed?
- What would be a solution to this issue?
