Fake Cops Are Stopping Drivers for Violating Stay-At-Home Orders
Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams shakes his head in confusion: Somewhere out in his county, a guy with flashing lights on his Dodge Charger has been stopping drivers and warning them they’re violating coronavirus-related travel restrictions.
Whoever is stopping the cars isn’t one of Ream’s deputies. Instead, the police impersonator is himself breaking the law and putting himself at extreme risk, because traffic stops are among the most dangerous things most law enforcement officers do. The stops happened several times in March. . .
Reams is not alone. Authorities have reported police impersonators making coronavirus-related stops in Georgia and California, among others. While there are always some people, almost always men, who like to pretend they’re cops, the coronavirus outbreak seems to have emboldened an unusual number of them, particularly in Northern Colorado. . .
And he isn’t the only one. An apparently different group of imposters conducted an even more elaborate checkpoint in Greeley, the capital city of Weld County, around the same time, funneling drivers into a corral where men with unmarked black uniforms and dash-mounted flashing lights questioned them about violating travel restrictions, police said. Like other states, Colorado’s stay-at-home order permits essential travel, including trips to work. . .
In Georgia’s Dawson and Hall counties, a man driving a dark sedan with flashing blue lights in its windshield area stopped several drivers late last month to “enforce a curfew,” the Dawson County Sheriff’s office said. In California, authorities are investigating a man they say pretended to be a cop and falsely said on Facebook that officers from El Centro, a small city near the U.S.-Mexico border, were enforcing a quarantine against three families. (Read more from “Fake Cops Are Stopping Drivers for Violating Stay-At-Home Orders” HERE)
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