Activists/artivists/culture jammers The Yes Men released an ingenious new parody this morning. Called “Three Strikes, You’re In!” the spoof campaign announces a partnership between the NYPD and McDonald’s meant to reward law-abiding New Yorkers who put up with the police department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which, according to recently released data, targeted a record 684,330 people in 2011, 87 percent of them black or Latino.

The deal? Anyone who gets stopped and frisked three times without incident can receive a FREE HAPPY MEAL!!! All you have to do is fill out a voucher with the officer’s badge number, as well as the date and location, of each stop and frisk. (I’m sure the officers would be very obliging.)

“Surprisingly, a large number of New Yorkers who were stopped and frisked turned out to be innocent,” says a faux McDonald’s spokesman in the hilarious video announcing the campaign.

Meanwhile, a real McDonald’s representative denied the existence of the program to Colorlines.org. “Three Strikes, You’re In!” launched this morning with a complete website where visitors could read about the campaign and obtain vouchers, but sadly, it’s already been taken down.

Editor’s note: The video we originally posted was deleted from Vimeo at 5:50pm EST today, but we discovered the same video on Daily Motion and posted that above.

Jillian Steinhauer is a former senior editor of Hyperallergic. She writes largely about the intersection of art and politics but has also been known to write at length about cats. She won the 2014 Best...

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