Officers in St. Joseph handing out cash instead of tickets

By Jenna Wilson

You may have noticed St. Joseph police officers making a significant amount of stops Monday morning, but they weren’t routine traffic stops.

Thanks to a secret donor, three St. Joseph police officers were sent on a special operation to gift nine residents $100 cash instead of traffic tickets – handing out more than $2,500.

News-Press Now rode along with Officer Shadow Phillips for the Secret Santa operation on Monday.

Phillips looked for individuals driving with violations including expired tags and driving without insurance. He noticed a driver with a license plate hanging from her vehicle – so a stop was initiated.

“Take this cash and get your license plate fixed,” Philips said to the driver.

According to Phillips, his favorite part of the Secret Santa operation is hearing people’s stories and realizing they truly deserve the money.

As he drove into a gas station, he pulled over a driver with expired tags on her vehicle.

“She’s a single mom and said the reason she didn’t have her tags yet was because she hasn’t been able to afford it,” Phillips said. “She just got hired on and she’s a nice lady…I’ve ran into her before. Has insurance, has everything up to date, just doesn’t have tags on her car yet.”

He approached the woman who was emotional and expecting a ticket just two days before Christmas, but Phillips surprised her with something more useful – $100.

“It’s the holidays so here’s $100,” he said. “I know it’s hard sometimes so go buy the kids a gift and make sure you have a safe holiday.”

Officer Phillips ended the Secret Santa Operation with a change of pace – stopping people on foot.

A grandmother with two grandchildren was gifted $100 while walking out of a dollar general, stating how appreciative she was.

Shortly after, Phillips recognized someone he’s seen plenty of times before; a father with his three children in the back seat.

“We got a lot of positive reactions out of this today and there’s some people we ran into before that had negative interactions with us before and today guess what? It was a little different and that’s something they’re going to hold onto in the future,” he said.

Officers throughout the city hope more people will have a chance to see acts of kindness from them as they work to strengthen community trust in officers.