He should have ticketed the Aunt, but he didn’t. That is the point. So we give the power of life and death to someone that stupid?
Scary, isn’t it? But that’s less an issue of the law than of the spotty standards for hiring peace officers, I think. Believe me, there were cops when I was a prosecutor who, when I saw their names on the citation, I knew I was going to have to seriously consider not prosecuting the offense. Fortunately (or unfortunately), that’s the prosecutor’s call, not the cop’s or the judge’s.