Somehow we don't think this would have gone as well for a car full of young African American men. Then again, young African American men probably wouldn't have been dumb or entitled enough to try it.

A group of four young, apparently white men stood on the Boardwalk in Venice recently and asked passersby, “You guys need some coke?”

This caught the attention of the Los Angeles Police Department, whose officers approached the foursome after it reassembled in a nearby SUV that was wired with multiple cameras to capture the confrontation (see the video below). It looks like this goes down near Pacific and Windward avenues.

The guys act nervous and, after some questioning by a pair of officers, one of the men sitting in a rear seat blurts out, “We have a bunch of coke in the back—I'm sorry.”

The four are pulled from the SUV and placed in handcuffs before the vehicle is searched front and back. When an officer pulls a blanket from the rear and discovers empty red cans of Coca-Cola, she shakes her head, closes a hatch and smiles.

“Aw, these guys are genius,” her partner says as he checks out her discovery. “Coca-Cola … tell us about it.”


The handcuffs come off, there are hand shakes, and the men are released.

The episode appears to be the brainchild of YouTube prankster Niko Martinovic, who told ABC Los Angeles that the point was “to get a good laugh out of it.”

Police aren't laughing now, though. LAPD Commander Andrew Smith told the station that cops could still recommend charges against the four.

He decried the misuse of city resources, which could have diverted the officers from dealing with more serious, life-or-death situations.

And he appears to admit the four were lucky here. “There’s always the potential for something bad to happen,” he said.

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