A Utah police chief pranked citizens during a traffic stop on April Fools' Day by pretending he and his cat were part of a fake "feline unit."
Salina City Police Department Chief Eric Pratt pulled a vehicle over for allegedly speeding at 91 mph in an 80 mph zone on Friday.
Video posted to Facebook shows Pratt asking the driver for his license, before asking him and the four passengers what the odor coming from the car is.
They deny having controlled substances inside the vehicle, so Pratt says he's going to fetch what he claims is his drug-sniffing kitty partner Froo Froo from his squad car.
"So what I'm going to do, I'm going to deploy my cat around the outside of your vehicle. If the cat indicates the odor of a controlled substance, we're going to go from there, OK? Does that make sense to you?" Pratt says.
Froo Froo, who Pratt falsely says has been on the force for 8 years, is then used to conduct an exterior analysis of the car -- and Pratt warns that if she meows three times in a row, then it indicates a possible problem.
Pratt completes a lap around the car and asks one of the passengers if she'd mind the cat entering the vehicle. But he can't keep up the gag any longer, and eventually confesses that he's pulling an April Fools' Day prank.
"You guys, I can't keep playing with you. This is an April Fools' joke," he says.
The unidentified driver and his passengers look shocked, then relieved, and burst out laughing -- before the front passenger reaches out to pet the animal.
Pratt posted the video on Facebook, and it had more than 2 million views by Sunday morning.
Pre-empting a possible online backlash, he stated, "No tax payer dollars were spent in relation to this video." Pratt also said he'd pay for the few minutes of fuel, and said that he pulled the prank during his own time and his cat was not injured during the incident.
"The stop was legitimate (speeding), and my decision to give a warning was legitimate (I regularly warn for 11 over, which is what the stop was for)," he wrote. "Smile people, it's April Fool's Day!"
Salina Mayor Dustin Deaton told KSL.com that Pratt would "actually receive a letter of commendation” for the prank. "I'm glad to see him doing something like this to build a positive relationship with the citizens, to close the gap between law enforcement and citizens," Deaton said.
