Last week I was driving to work on a road where two lanes merged into one and the traffic was slowed to about 1 mph. The car alongside me stayed alongside until the road got too narrow, then dropped back behind me. Then I heard a siren. Looked in my rearview. The driver behind me was doing the siren and motioning me off the road. I thought “Huh???” I pulled over and the guy asked for my license and registration. He was livid with anger and kept screaming foul language at me. Said he was giving me a ticket and when I said I didn’t understand what this was all about, he got angrier and fouler, and threatened to give me another ticket for “reckless driving.” Then he said he’d forgotten to bring his ticket book and would send me a ticket in the mail, and if I didn’t respond and go to traffic court within ten days, a warrant would be issued for my arrest, have a nice day.
Well, a whole week has passed with no ticket in the mail, obviously. It didn’t take me long to figure out that he was bluffing. After going on my way, I recalled he was not in uniform, showed no badge, and didn’t even have any flashing light. What he was doing with a police siren is anybody’s guess. He was no doubt counting on intimidating me from even asking who the hell he thought he was (and he was right about that). Instead of trying to reason with him, I should have asked to see his badge and inquired what kind of cop he was. If he failed to produce a badge, I could have said, “You’re no cop, you’re an imposter!” and pulled away from there.
Oddly, as I was pulling away after that incident, I noticed a real cop car had pulled up behind the guy who was harassing me. I wonder how that guy explained to the cop what he was doing!
My husband (passenger) and his friend were pulled over for drunk driving by a civilian on the freeway! He actually forced them off the road while waving from his car. The guy ranted and raved about how he was making a citizen’s arrest and called the cops on his cell phone.
Hubby and friend took the keys out of the car and calmly sat on the hood waiting for the police to show, while the nutcase stood guard over them yelling the whole time.
Mr Police Officer arrives and proceeds to thouroughly ream the guy. Tell him that he can’t do anything even if they were drunk, because he had never seen them driving the car, keys weren’t in it, and guys weren’t in it. Yelled how dangerous it was, what an idiot he was, etc. and sent him off with a warning.
Nevertheless, the police officer made the guys get back in the car and followed them while they moved it off the freeway into a parking lot. He took down driver’s license numbers and addresses and said he was sending them tickets if the car moved for the rest of his shift.
They called me at 1am, got my pregnant ass out of bed and made me pick them up. They WERE drunk too, the assholes…but scared shitless!
This happened right outside of Washington, DC. Around here there are innumerable different law enforcement agencies and overlapping jurisdictions such that nobody can keep track of all of them. That’s why even though I’m pretty sure this “cop” was bogus. But I can’t be 100% sure, which is the weird thing about it.
If he wasn’t a real cop, WTF was he doing with a police siren in his car?
Mojo, many people have police sirens/lights in their cars for car shows, or just for the hell of it. I own a 1996 Chevy Impala SS, and it is based off of the same frame as many of the Police cars you see on the roads (the really big Chevy sedans, not the new ones with round taillights) and I installed a full set of police strobe lights, including red/blue strobes behind the grille, flashing head and taillights, and white strobe sidemarkers. They are highly illegal (for show use only) but they do make driving easier in extreme situations. Eg: I had to drive myself to the hospital, and it was like watching the Red Sea part and I had a clear road the whole way!
We’ve had a few “red-light” bandits over the years (anyone remember Caryl Chessman?) where people attempt to impersonate cops. But we had an odd one last week.
An apparent Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy in a marked squad car with the light bar and all pulled over an off-duty H.P.D. officer and told him that he had taillights out, but that could be overlooked for some cash. The guy was decked out in Deputy drag with gun, equipment belt and the little lapel radio and actually had the Houston cop convinced until he started the bribery rap, whence the legit cop whipped out his badge and the bogus guy took off. It turns out that the uniform he was wearing was recently changed by the sheriff’s department and he was out of date.
The remarkable thing is that he wasn’t driving, say, a Crown Vic with some blue and red lights tucked behind the grill, but a marked brown and creme, badge on the door, light bar on the roof cruiser. If I was going this route I’d just buy an auction Police Interceptor and re-equip it.
So how manny taillight shakedowns does it take to make that pay out? Obviously there are some other issues at work here, because the guy can’t make enough on such a racket to justify equipping said cruiser. Maybe (hope) he hasn’t graduated to serial murder yet, but this perp has some obvious problems with power, authority, legitimacy, etc.
If you ever have pause to question the identity of a person attempting to pull you over (and the cops do use some low-profile units), continue to drive at a reasonable and steady speed until you can stop at a place where there are plenty of other witnesses to the event. If you proceed on a regular street at 30 mph or on a highway at a steady 55 mph, no legit cop is going to force you into the curb; he’s just going to stay with you until you get to a public enough place for you to pull over.
There was a guy recently arrested here in Ohio for impersonating a highway patrol officer. He didn’t pull people over though. He just did it to get free meals from fast food places. (Which real troopers arent allowed to do)
You know you have a Driver’s License? Cops must have one like it; but it’s a Cop License. Ask to see it. All US cops have them (right?). That way you know they are real cops.
I was driving my buddy to his job as a rent-a-cop - this was about 12 years ago. We were in the middle lane on the highway when a guy blows by us on the right, waaaaaay too close to my car, while guzzling a beer.
I caught up to him, and my friend pulled his security guard badge off his chest, shows it to the guy, and screamed at him to pull over. The guy pulled off onto the shoulder, I pulled into the right lane, and kept on going.
Yeah, we shouldn’t have done it, but the guy was a schmuck. Besides, the look on his face was priceless.
Serial killers and the like love authority as long as they are in power. They are sadists at heart, and therefore are attracted to bondage/dominance relationships. Very few sadists/Dom lovers are actually violent in the way killers are. But serial killers seem to lack empathy and enjoy torturing a helpless ‘other.’ The military and the police forces are a socially-approved, socially-respected outlet for those urges. Of course, serial killers can’t function in any relationship where others dominate them for very long. So they leave the military or the police and become free-agent killers, possibly assuming some role they know will give them a steady stream of submissive ‘others.’ I’m sure you can find plenty of books on the serial killer psyche written by people who know what they are talking about, so hie thee to a bookstore and stop relying on a message board to help you understand a killer’s mind.
Tell him that he can’t do anything even if they were drunk, because he had never seen them driving the car, keys weren’t in it, and guys weren’t in it. Yelled how dangerous it was, what an idiot he was, etc. and sent him off with a warning.