WOODBURY — When city police announced they had recently been targeting drivers who don't properly stop for pedestrians, using undercover officers to catch them in the act, residents responded by asking them to also go after jaywalkers.

So, they did.

Woodbury Police Chief Reed Merinuk on Tuesday stated an Aug. 2 operation involving five officers specifically focused on pedestrians who were not properly crossing heavily trafficked parts of South Broad Street in the downtown area.

In all, officers issued 28 tickets and five municipal ordinance violations.

In addition, four warrants were served and three criminal complaint arrests were made.

“That was all in a four-hour time span,” said Merinuk, addressing the city council Tuesday night. “The truth is we’ve always enforced jaywalking rules — we call them quality-of-life patrols — but in response to the requests we were receiving, we stepped it up.”

The police department in June and July began an initiative to catch drivers who fail to properly yield to pedestrians using “decoys,” or undercover officers specially trained by the state Division of Traffic and Highway Safety.

During a four-hour operation on June 24 using five officers — including one “decoy” acting as a pedestrian — police stopped 59 vehicles, issuing 42 tickets for failure to yield to pedestrians, as well as eight other motor vehicle violations.

On July 22, officers issued 65 tickets, 36 of them for failure to yield. They also handed out 14 written warnings.

The police chief said the department next plans to resume the pedestrian safety program in September.

Contact Jason Laday at 856-686-3628 or jladay@southjerseymedia.com.