Roadside Litter to Be Checked for Prints
‘Like CSI, only with garbage’
Holiday revelers may want to think twice before throwing a beer can or liquor bottle out of the car window. Police Chief Ronal Serpas has announced that as part of his department’s efforts to reduce drinking and driving, as well as littering, those cans and bottles will be regularly picked up and checked for fingerprints.
“We are really excited about the possibilities of this,” Serpas says. “We’ve canceled all leave at the crime lab over the New Year holiday weekend, and we’re going to be checking the fingerprints on every bottle and can we can find.”
Anybody whose prints are in the police system and are matched on a discarded alcohol container can expect a visit from an officer.
“Most folks will just get a ticket, but there’s a chance this will pull in people who are wanted on other warrants,” Serpas says. “This is really going to cut the crime rate.”
Not everybody agrees with the new aggressive approach to littering.
“Just picking up junk along the roadside and then using that to build a case raises some real potential for abuse,” says the American Civil Liberties Union’s Hedy Weinberg. “So what if a person’s prints are on a roadside can? That doesn’t mean they put it there.”
Many Metro police officers join the ACLU as detractors of Serpas’ plan.
“I can’t believe, with dozens of unsolved murders over the past year, that Serpas is going to have us out picking up old Budweiser cans,” says one disgruntled cop.
But Serpas says he’s already thinking ahead to bigger anti-litter crime-fighting
technology.
“Right now we’re only able to do fingerprints, but I hope by next year we’ll be able to do DNA testing as well. This is going to be just like CSI, only with garbage.”
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