Cop here and this rubs me the wrong way.

First of all, it isn't legal. Utilizing your lights and stopping a car constitutes as a detention. In order to legally detain someone, you need to have suspicion of a crime or offense to have occurred. Its cute, but stopping someone to give them ice cream is not legal.

Police often forget how stressful being pulled over can be for some people. Their mind starts racing.. "What did I do!? Am I going to get a ticket? I can't afford to pay for a ticket.. what if I have to go to court? I can't take a day off of work. I can't pay for child care while I'm at court. etc.." Stressing someone out like that for doing the right thing seems inappropriate. Not to mention, police have no idea where the civilian is headed. They could be making the civilian late for work or any other important appointment.

Also this just comes off so heavy handed as a PR stunt. They're detaining civilians and filming them for the stunt. Police are all smiles and the civilian was probably sweating buckets. She smiles and was relieved to not get a ticket, but she never should have believed she was getting a ticket to begin with.

Some others have suggested pulling folks over for minor traffic offenses, and giving out icecream along with the warnings. I like that idea better, but I still don't like the idea of pulling people over that you normally wouldn't. Its just needless stress on civilians. There are millions of other ways to get good PR that doesn't include illegally detaining civilians and forcing them to give you their time for the camera.

Its a cute thought, and I know the police meant no harm. But I think police forget what its like being a civilian and what its like getting pulled over sometimes. Plus the department could probably be sued for these unlawful detentions if the civilian really wanted to go that route. Its a liability for the department.