https://youtu.be/STcRL951gqM

By Matt Agorist

Washington, LA — In the land of the free, if law enforcement witnesses you driving your personally owned vehicle with dark window tint or without your seatbelt on, they will pull you over and issue a citation, otherwise known as extortion. If you refuse to acknowledge this extortion, or attempt to resist it, you will be kidnapped and caged. If you refuse to be kidnapped and caged, you can and will have violence brought upon you, and can and will be killed. The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous traffic citations over the years, which started over victimless crimes and ended with someone getting beaten or killed.

While there is no shortage of videos of people being killed over seatbelt violations — or even dogs being killed by cops — we’ve never seen an incident in which someone was given a ticket for their dog not wearing a seatbelt.

All that has changed this week, however, as the infamously ticket-happy police department in Washington, Louisiana has made news once again for issuing a ticket to a resident because his dog wasn’t buckled up. Seriously.

Eric Champagne took to Facebook to express his anger over the incident. He explained that he was inside a Dollar Store in Washington when a police officer came inside demanding to know who Champagne’s vehicle belonged to.

The officer claimed someone had made a complaint after driving behind Champagne, claiming Champagne had been swerving. Without any investigation or review of evidence, the officer cited Champagne for careless operation. Then, for good measure, despite Champagne’s car being parked in a parking lot, the officer claimed that since his dog wasn’t buckled up now, he likely wasn’t buckled up then — so he wrote another citation for “no seatbelt (dog).”

Champagne explained on Facebook how it unfolded, “I asked him how is this legal that he can write me a ticket for something he did not see while I was driving outside his jurisdiction and he told me that a civilian called in and that was all the evidence he needed.”

“I went to look at the ticket when he gave it to me, and it said careless operations and no seatbelt for your dog. So I was like, what’s going on?” he said. “I never heard of it being a law that your dog has to have a seatbelt and I guess according to him not only is it a law but he doesn’t even have to see it to ticket me for it. As long as a civilian said it happened, he has to take their word for it.”

Knowing that this ticket was entirely bogus, Champagne says he told the cop that they will never see a dime of his money.

“I made sure he knew I would see him in court and that it would be a cold day in hell before they see a dollar from me over that!”

Adding insult to rampant police-state ridiculousness is the fact that Champagne actually keeps his little French bulldog Rebel in a seatbelt but pointed out that he was not driving at the time the officer stopped him.

“I get laughed at for having a dog seatbelt. You know you spoiled your dog too much. I didn’t think that wasn’t a common law. If that was a law, you would see it a lot more often,” he said.

In his Facebook post, Champagne explained that he is now pursuing a lawsuit against the department for the “nonsense ticketing” practice.

“I’m just refusing to pay a fine for a ticket that he could not legally give. What is the world coming to when you can call the police to report someone, and the cop doesn’t stop you, but instead comes find you wherever you are to give you a ticket based only on the story given by the civilian who called the police station to let them know. These cops are abusing their power and issuing nonsense tickets and it has to stop!”

Indeed.