Parking Enforcement Officer Tom Stager watches as a vehicle brazenly passes through the crosswalk in front of him. Stager served as a decoy during the Bishop Police Department pedestrian sting on Wednesday that resulted in citations for more than a dozen motorists in a few hours’ time. Photo by Mike Gervais

By Mike Gervais
Register Staff

5-1-2008

It took less than two hours Wednesday for the Bishop Police Department to cite 15 drivers for cruising through crosswalks while pedestrians were crossing Main Street.
The citations were issued as part of a sting operation conducted in response to two vehicle-versus-pedestrian accidents on Main Street within two weeks of each another last month. Both collisions resulted in the victims being transported to a Reno hospital for treatment of major injuries.

Bishop Police Detective Dave Jepson coordinated with Reserve Officer Richard Kizer and Parking Enforcement Officer Tom Stager who served as decoys and two other officers to conduct the long-planned pedestrian sting.
Jepson stationed himself on the sidewalk near the two decoys, while two officers in squad cars laid in wait to the north and south of the designated sidewalk. The decoys were instructed to begin walking only when motorists were a safe distance away – that is, motorists were given enough time to stop for the pedestrians.
When drivers blew past the decoy pedestrian, Jepson would radio descriptions of the vehicles to the waiting officers.

As of press time Wednesday, the sting was rated a success by Jepson, with more than 17 citations and several other warnings being issued to various offenders.
According to Jepson, the officers were looking for two main infractions: vehicles that simply did not stop for pedestrians, and vehicles that overtook motorists who had stopped for a pedestrian.
The latter of the two infractions is much more severe, Jepson said.
He also said that officers conducting the sting were operating more under “the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.”
Jepson explained that it is illegal for a vehicle to enter a crosswalk while a pedestrian is anywhere in the roadway, but during the sting operation, officers showed leniency towards offenders who crossed through the crosswalk while the pedestrian was on the other side of the road.
In addition to the citations written for motorists violating a pedestrian’s right-of-way, Jepson issued several verbal warnings to travelers who were speeding through town or not wearing seat belts.
Jepson also said that because the Verizon phone systems were down on Wednesday, officers were unable to run names and license plate numbers of violators through the department’s systems. That means, for example, that if an individual was stopped for violating a pedestrian’s right-of-way, officers were unable to determine if he or she had warrants out for their arrest or happened to be driving a stolen vehicle.