It’s like a cat and mouse game, except with free beer instead of cheese.
Few promises are more compelling to humankind than the promise of “free beer.” Marketing people know this well. “Free Beer” has the power to attract young people to lame events, force socially anxious couch potatoes (me!) to parties, and, if there’s enough, make mediocre music sound totally dance-worthy. It may lead to bad decisions, temporary unconsciousness and vomiting, but for most, the call of “free beer” is simply too attractive to resist.
This is the power the Derbyshire Police in the U.K. harnessed this week for an undercover sting operation which caught 19 suspects who had been evading arrest for months. According to Sky News, the police sent letters to the suspects, asking them to call a marketing company to collect free beer. “A time and date was arranged for the free alcohol to be delivered but instead the suspects were arrested,” wrote the paper.
While I hate the idea of being duped into anything, I prefer this manner of arresting evasive suspects over tactics which include tazer guns, kicking down doors and bobby clubs (I think that’s what they call it in the U.K.). The free beer trick is just the police’s version of catching a mouse by slathering a cracker with peanut butter and putting it in a have-a-heart trap. It’s mean because it’s tricky, but it gets the job done.
[Via Fark]
