AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JULY 2017 23 P olice officers and agencies weren’t much of a target for wealthy indi- viduals looking to make charitable tax-deduct- ible donations in the past. But that’s changed hard and fast. If you read Ameri- can Police Beat, you’ve heard plenty of stories about an agency being able to get some new vehicles, a new shooting range and all kinds of other stuff thanks to gifts from wealthy donors and boosters. This obviously raises some serious questions. For instance, according to CBS Sports, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones recently provided tickets to a Cow- boys game and travel accom- modations for nearly 200 North Little Rock, Arkansas officers and their families during the 2016 season. All told the cost of that trip was $300,000 dollars ac- cording to the Dallas Morning News. From an emotional per- spective this is obviously just a wealthy NFL owner supporting police officers. But from a legal and ethi- cal perspective things are slightly complicated. After the story broke an ethics complaint was filed by an activist blogger in Arkansas. Shortly thereafter it was determined that Jones, who is from Arkansas, was indeed found to have committed an “unintentional ethics viola- tion.” According to the Dallas Morning News: “Jones made a personal appearance to defend his gift, reportedly saying that he didn’t view the gifts as a reward for police work but to send a positive message about the work of- ficers volunteer to do when they’re not on duty. Jones reportedly felt so strongly about it that he refused to accept a settlement in the matter.” Unlike Jones, Sgt. Michael Gibbons, president of the North Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police, agreed with the findings of the Arkansas Ethics Commission. Gibbons was very straight- forward about the fact that he and other officers violated the law and code of ethics when they accepted the mas- sive gift. No one will be officially sanctioned in the matter “based upon a showing of ‘good cause.’” The Little Rock City Council has passed a resolution declar- ing the gifts as form of official compensation. For his part, Jones will receive a letter of warning. Everyone likes to see police officers get sup- port. But when there’s a lot of money changing hands it’s always a good idea to make sure everything’s on the up and up. Jerry Jones You guys want to go to the game on me?