impersonating an officer
Joseph Ramos was pulled over because his car windows are too dark. As he pulled over, the citizen turned on his own flashing lights, and stepped out of the car wearing a dark blue uniform.
The cop had him get back in his car, but then Ramos reached over the passenger seat for something. The cop drew his weapon and told him to stop.
They searched his car and found three pellet guns, a loaded shotg un, four Tasers, a nightstick, handcuff keys, a neighborhood watch brochure, some Tampa police trespass warnings and a too-large can of pepper spray.
Tampa police arrested him for impersonating an officer.
Ramos’ boss said the charge is “ridiculous,” since these items can be explained by his job as a security guard.
If he was impersonating a cop, wouldn’t he have been busy using his flashers to run red lights, idling in a parking lot playing computer games, or being completely oblivious to the thousands of cars with very darkly tinted windows?
Tags: city, law enforcement
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August 1st, 2007 at 12:21 am
my understanding has always been you have to proactively portray yourself as an officer unless you are really over the top (i.e. wearing a uniform or possessing a real badge or police lights and vehicles.)
lets see if the state attorney moves forward with this. The past couple of years there have been a couple of yahoos they caught really impersonating cops around here which may have something to do with how strongly they came down on him. Notice he had handcuff keys but not, apparently, handcuffs. Usually you do that if you plan on getting cuffed at some point.
August 5th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I am curious do police officers wear their uniforms when they are not on duty- then security guards should not either. My other question is does the car belong to him or does he drive the business car. Who pays for the ticket for windows tinted. No legitomate co. should ever tint car windows to dark. This whole thing does not sound legal.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:11 am
I knew this yahoo personally. He was the security guard for the hair school I attended. The guy is shady as they come. He had a an obsession with law enforcement. He would yank all that shit out of his trunk and show it off with pride. In his own mind he thought he was a cop. The guy was not mentally well at all. I knew he would eventually get busted. He wined about how he need money because of a custody battle to people and not a few days after that our school was robbed without a forced entry 1 week after the school opened during the memorial day holiday weekend and the school lost 5 plasma screen tv’s plus the dvd players. Hmmmmm I wonder who was resposible for that. All I can say is he is shady!