Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/14/cop-impersonator-arrested-afte.html
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I see articles like this pop up every now and then, of some random idiot trying to pass as a cop pulling over a real cop. What i’m curious is what are these people trying to do in the first place?
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Remember that traffic stop scene in Bad Lieutenant?
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The commissioner wasn’t driving a squad car here, they didn’t know he was a cop. They were just pulling the regular scam of pulling them over with some bullshit, and saying that they can pay the fine on the side of the road to avoid being taken in to the station. Or if the victim is sexually attractive they may suggest alternate forms of payment.
Impersonating a police officer has a pretty stiff penalty, those guys are going to be seeing hard jail time.
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We need a new sub-blog dedicated to crazy things that happen in Florida.
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The only thing that stops a bad guy (pretending to be a good* guy) with a gun is a good guy (dressed as a regular guy) who probably has a gun, but would have to be pretty sure the guy who looked like a good guy - but was acting suspiciously - really was a bad guy, so really he’s better off flagging down another good guy, who hopefully really is a good guy this time.
*for certain, official definitions of “good”
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Florida? What again?
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Missed opportunity. Headline should have been “Florida Man Impersonating Cop…”
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In a related issue, I was caught up in a traffic jam in San Diego one night, and there was a guy with one of those new aftermarket hazard light kits just flashing his lights and fooling everyone into pulling over.
I could tell it wasn’t a cop, so I held my place. Of course, with no siren, all he could do was rev his engine, but I didn’t budge. He was plenty “entitlement” mad by the time the traffic eased up.
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The article only mentions red lights and says no uniform, it may be hard to get the impersonation charge to stick.
Were any of the lights blue?
No, it was just one of those strobe kits that are offered on late model consumer vehicles.
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And people pulled over for that? Huh 
That is a major coincidence. Two days ago, up here in Canada, I passed a fully loaded Toyota 4 Runner that had pulled somebody over on the highway. I thought “that’s funny, I’ve never seen the RCMP use a Toyota 4 Runner as a ghost car before.”
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I thought to myself that if it really was an emergency/authority vehicle, they’d have a siren or at least honk their horn, but nothing. Additionally, this was a once-in-a-blue-moon type of traffic jam on surface streets, and some people were trying some stupid stuff, like hopping the curb or really testing the oncoming traffic at intersections.
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Guys like this really aren’t funny. They are often rapists. They terrify me, and I’m a man.
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i think it’s just too early in the morning. i needed the first two paragraphs from the article to understand who was what and why.
Two men impersonating police officers tried to pull over the wrong guy Wednesday: Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez — a former decorated Miami-Dade cop.The men were taken into custody after Martinez said he became suspicious of the vehicle’s flashing lights, refused to pull over, then flagged down a squad car he was passing on the highway.
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