Police use Easter Bunny costume for local sting operation

When you’re driving along a busy road with a lot of pedestrian lanes, common sense suggests that you yield when someone is about to cross the road - especially when they are dressed up as the Easter Bunny.

Apparently, motorists in Glendale, California thought differently when, in fact, a man wearing a rabbit costume walked along unmarked crosswalks. Most motorists failed to even yield to the rather strange creature in front of them.

Turns out, that creature was Glendale Police Officer Tom Broadway, who wore the attention-grabbing costume as part of a local sting operation to educate motorists on safe driving.

Yeah, we smelled set-up from the very beginning. Ok, not really. And we ended up not being the only ones who got confused with all the brouhaha. According to the cops doing the sting, around 24 citations were handed out to motorists on suspicion of failing to yield to the Easter Bunny as it walked across an unmarked crosswalk. The motorists didn’t take quite well to the whole sting, with one of them even saying that he got so confused because the bunny hopped directly in front of him.

We don’t really understand the whole point of the sting, but according to Lt. Gary Montecuollo, it was directed at educating motorists on ensuring the safety of pedestrians. “We are not here to create violations,” he said. “Quite frankly, we would be happy if everybody stopped. The idea is to generate a knowledge of safety for the pedestrian.”

Something tells me motorists in Glendale should look up the definition of entrapment. Just a thought.