Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/07/im-the-sheriff-gentl.html
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I wonder if the gentleman watches Leonard French’s YouTube channel.
Original report
Earlier update
(Another case of ‘messed with the wrong guy’, I suppose)
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OK, but was he doing anything illegal?
Breaking News: Man misses prime opportunity to shoot the sheriff, but not the deputy. /s
ETA: It still kinda unnerves me that there are so many recorded instances of this kind of thing happening in the US.
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I believe most states and localities have laws regarding how you can paint/equip your vehicle for just this reason.
In California a few years back Best Buy had to change the paint jobs on the fleet of VW beetles used by their tech support “Geek Squad” because that specific black & white color scheme was legally reserved for law enforcement vehicles only.
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Not the greatest profession to choose to cosplay as.
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Might have just been in the hopes of speeding in other “jurisdictions” and not get a ticket, but sounds illegal.
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Theres at least Reasonable suspicion for the stop, i believe the bowie knife and the lights are illegal under mi law for the eventual arrest. But thats more a question for the prosecutor than the officer. Not sure what officer wouldn’t at least want to clarify the situation.
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I Have a small grip and electric company in Seattle. On a show I was lighting last year they had a scene where they needed police lights on the actors and the BG. yes I know there are LED lights that do this but I am old school.
Regardless I looked on line and it is scary how easy it is to buy cop lights for less than 40 bucks that plug into the lighter. I make it a point to keep them in my garage and not on my truck unless I need them.
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[quote=“kennykb, post:2, topic:161436”]
I wonder if the gentleman watches Leonard French’s YouTube channel[/quote]
Or the Real World Police channel. I’ve been enjoying gazing in cringey horror upon the saga of a security guard for funeral processions who somehow convinced himself that he’s entitled to dress like a cop and boss everyone around. All on camera…
Another pretty hilarious one, in its way:
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I saw some of this too. The video of his helmet cam acting like a world class dick and using a siren and acting like a cop, means I have zero sympathy for him.
Unrelated, but hes also a registered sex offender.
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Easy enough to buy high intensity LEDs, and to keep your cop mode in software for when you really need it. I could just leave them in yellow mode most of the time…
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I think it’s interesting how these YouTube channels are getting so much exposure. It’s like the new network TV, lots of people are seeing the content of some of these channels, at least within whichever niche that channel serves.
And agreed, that helmet cam footage is golden. Or horrific, whichever.
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Weird. Do they paint the cruisers they sell after they get old, or just scrap them? I knew a guy who got one cheap and used it in college. You could see where the stickers used to be, but it was just a black and white Ford Crown Vic.
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Back in HS in central VA, late 80s, I had a friend whose parents had a white Ford Crown Vic. Nothing special about it, just plain white, but it could pass for an unmarked police cruiser. We’d make occasional trips down I64 to the beach in the summer and she’d always drive in a crisp white collared shirt and gold-rimmed aviators, hair back in a tight bun. If the others in the car ducked down she could drive right past a speed trap at well over the legal limit with an intentional nod of the head to the “other” officer.
I wonder now if that was illegal, other than the obvious speeding part. Was she imitating a police officer?
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I used to drive a state government car for my engineering work. It got to be quite annoying that any car in front of me would immediately slow right down.
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This is a different one from earlier this week, right? (I fully fess up to not bothering to check.)
I know they auction off the old vehicles but I don’t know if buyers are legally required to repaint them. Maybe the rule only applies to new paint jobs.
ETA: It’s hard to find an authoritative source but apparently the California Highway Patrol’s position is that people who buy decommissioned police vehicles have to repaint them before using them.
This fits with a memory I have of taking an auto shop class in the 90s, someone had brought in an SUV that had been used as a K-9 unit to fix up (the dog smell in the back was unmistakable). It still had the black & white but all the decals had been sanded off down to the metal, which I guess is as good a way of forcing the new owner to repaint as any.
There is an exception in the law for cars that are used exclusively in movies and TV productions, but they have to have signs reading “movie car” displayed prominently on the doors when they are driving on public roads to and from the shoots.
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Guy on the last Lemons rally bought a cheap Crown Vic and removed all of the stickers, lightbar, and the cop paraphanalia… wore plainclothes and still managed to get tickets for impersonating a police officer. Later he disappeared and was never heard from again.
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