Bemidji police, Dairy Queen revive helmet safety campaign for kids

Bemidji police brought back a helmet-safety campaign with the Bemidji Lakeside Dairy Queen to push more children to wear proper head protection while riding around town. The revived effort is built around positive reinforcement, not punishment, and local officials said it is meant to promote community awareness and compliance in Bemidji and across Beltrami County.

The program, called “I Got Caught,” had gone dormant locally after the statewide version lost funding a few years ago. The Bemidji Police Department worked with the City of Bemidji Community and Police Advisory Board to bring it back, giving the campaign a local foothold instead of leaving it as a defunct statewide effort.

Under the AAA model, youth who are caught wearing helmets while riding bicycles, scooters, skateboards or inline skates can receive a citation for a free ice cream cone at participating Dairy Queen restaurants. AAA says participating agencies receive the citations in late April or early May, and lists the Minnesota Sheriffs Association, the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, Safe Kids Minnesota and Minnesota Towards Zero Deaths among the campaign’s partners.

For Bemidji officers, the practical goal is to reinforce the behavior they want to see on city streets, sidewalks and trails: kids wearing helmets every time they ride. That makes the effort a form of community policing as much as a safety campaign, with police using a reward to build habits before a crash can turn a minor ride into a major head injury.

The local partnership also gives the campaign a more visible presence than a police memo or school flyer alone could provide. By tying the message to the Bemidji Lakeside Dairy Queen, the department is betting that a simple cone citation can make helmet use feel less like a lecture and more like a norm.

AAA’s wider program has been used as a positive-reminder campaign in other communities, but Bemidji’s revival stands out because it was brought back after funding disappeared. In a town where children ride bikes and scooters to parks, neighborhoods and school routes, the effort turns an everyday stop at Dairy Queen into a small but measurable nudge toward safer riding.