Operation Lucky Bag?

What the hell is the New York Police Department thinking? As a crime prevention initiative, undercover cops are planting wallets, iPods, cell phones or purses in public areas. If you pick it up, you are immediately swarmed upon by police, frisked and your background is checked for prior arrests. So unless the police determine that you are making an effort to immediately return the item to a lost and found or to the person you think lost the item, you are guilty until proven innocent.

While riding in the New York subway, Carlos Alayo found a wallet sitting on an empty bench. In a hurry to get to a meeting, Alayo picked up the wallet and said he was going to check it for ID later. Before he knew it he was being frisked by police.

It turns out the wallet was planted by New York City police as part of "Operation Lucky Bag," a decoy operation involving planted wallets and undercover officers watching how bystanders react.

I have three questions: 1-How the fuck are you supposed to figure out who the item belongs to within a minute or so? 2 - What genius thought up of the "Lucky Bag" name? and 3 - Isn't this entrapment?

The police don't think so.

...the NYPD defends the practice. "Entrapment is forcing you to commit a crime, putting you in a position of giving you no choice. And here you have choices all along the way," said New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Not really, Brownie. The only choices you have are to pick it up or ignore it and walk away. You eliminate all other choices before they have a chance to be made. So in my estimation, the whole program is eroding what little community unity there is left in New York City and detering good samaritans from helping their fellow man for fear of it being a cheap sting operation.

This is completely different from the old stings where a "drunk" undercover cop would stagger around or pretend to be asleep on a bench with his wallet hanging out of his pocket, provoking unsuspecting would-be pickpockets to commit a crime.

Am I presumed a criminal for picking up a lost item?

A spokesperson for the New York Civil Liberties Union, Maggie Gram, said of the Lucky Bag operation: “It’s a sting that reeks of entrapment. There’s enough criminal activity without the cops inventing it.”

Granted, there are people who will take the item and keep it. But from personal experience, I can't tell you how many times I've found wallets or cell phones and found their owner after a little investigative work and returned the lost item. Now I'll have to think twice before doing a good deed.

I also can't help but wonder if the police would have been so quick to frisk Mr. Ayalo had his name been John Smith.