I sent this to Cecil. Someone responded suggesting I post here. Any thoughts?
Cops have times when they need to observe (potentially) illegal activity without being marked as such. For this reason, there are undercover police officers. Now, in the course of being undercover, it may be neccesary to break some (hopefully minor) laws, for instance to speed while tailing a suspect. There must be times when one law enforcement organization (FBI?) will for whatever reason have to avoid informing the local police as to what is going on, why, where, or who will be involved. Is there a way that the Men in Black can signal to the local police that they are not to be pulled over without tipping off Joe Average or informing the local police as to exactly what their business is? I would imagine that seeing the CPD flash up in the rearview while on the trail of some South American drug lord would spoil the Fed’s day.
Some local law enforcement departments have covert hand signals that they can use to identify themselves to each other. Presumably, if need be, the FBI could become privvy to the scheme in use where they were.
But in general, they might simply let themselves get pulled over or even arrested - what better way to establish their <i>bona fides</i> to the bad guys?
In fictional stories (for example the movie “To Live and Die in L.A.”) one often sees plotlines where the local police interfere inadvertantly with an FBI sting and vice-versa. Of course, I don’t know how accurate these depictions are.
A friend of mine was working on this vice squad. He got pulled over while he was riding with like three or four other big time drug dealers. The deputy who pulled him over had no idea who the guy was. Not by appearance anyway. But the address on the narcs license is that of the Sheriff’s Office Headquaters. After walking back to his car to run the ID, he surely noticed that and returned with a warning. Had the goof-ball not noticed the address, the narc would have just accepted a ticket.
Hand signals would be a good idea, until the bad guys caught on. Actually, the address thing is only a good idea until the bad guys catch on. Shhhhhh… dont tell anyone
Second Story:
Sheriff’s office spent months setting up their case with some heavy drug dealers. They made a lot of buys and built a trust with the bad guys. Finally they decide to go through with a huge deal and make a big bust. Coincidently the DEA, who had been spending months posing as big sellers decided to make their bust the same evening on the same big deal. As soon as the undercover deputy paid the undercover DEA agent, a team of Sheriff’s and a team of Agents busted in the building from all directions to make the arrests. Ooops! What a tense couple seconds that must have been. I can only imagine all the guns being pointed at everyone. After they got over the fact that they wasted the last couple months, they had a few good laughs over the whole thing. And it makes for a great story years later.
I am sure there are many more stories like that where Feds and locals ruin it for each other. As far as the local cop pulling over a Fed. The Fed would probably just eat the ticket then fix it later. There is always more than one guy following the suspect anyway so that would not be a problem. Not to mention the black helicopters
In most cases, the FBI alerts the local law enforcement people and lets them know what’s going on. Unless it’s a really secret investigation (or they’re investigating the cops).
