Crestview Police alter pizza reward program following legal concern

A local police department is pumping the brakes on a rewards program before it has even started.

Crestview Police said they will still give people pizza for good driving through their “Food from the Fuzz” program, but not like they initially had planned.

“It’s a simple program to reward good driving habits,” Chief Tony Taylor said. “That’s all it was.”

When police first announced the program on Monday, they were planning to pull people over for good driving and reward them with gift certificates for pizza. The agency received backlash on social media from people claiming that is a violation of constitutional rights.

Channel Three News asked the State Attorney’s Office for their legal standpoint on the program. Shortly after our call, their office called the police department with their own concerns.

“Law enforcement can stop or detail individuals only under certain circumstances,” Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcille said.

He said those circumstances include if an officer believes the person has committed a crime or if the individual driving is violating a criminal or traffic law. He said good driving is not a legitimate reason to pull a driver over.

Marcille also said the program could have had other unintended consequences. For instance, if the officer pulled the driver over for good activity, but found illegal activity, the State Attorney’s Office might not be able to prosecute because the officer did not have probable cause to pull the driver over.

“Once this was brought to the attention of the police department, they did agree there were concerns they did not realize and did agree to change their program,” Marcille said.

Marcille said the police department decided they would instead run tags on good drivers and mail them a gift certificate for pizza.

“We’re immolating a program that dozens of agencies across the nation are doing,” Taylor said. “They’re stopping people giving them gift cards.”

Taylor said they just wanted to reward good drivers as an encouragement for everyone else to do the same. He said last year, there were over 1,000 crashes in their city and three were fatalities. Taylor said the program was not a ploy to conduct illegal searches and seizures. He said their intentions were well-meaning.

“Not for one minute did we have any intent to violate anyone’s rights,” Taylor said.