If a guy in plain clothes with a badge refuses to let you call 911 to verify he's LEO

[GuyWithQuestions]

Earlier I had a thread asking about this real life serial killer who was a police impersonator and what one would do in that situation. It seemed like parts of the story distracted from what I was really trying to find out what to do in a situation I'm worried about, so I decided to start from scratch.

On THR, it's always said that if someone comes up to you claiming to be an undercover officer and shows a badge, you should ask for an ID card, or call 911 or the local police to verify that he's really a police officer, or request that an officer in uniform come over. So my concern is: what if he doesn't want to let you call 911? What if he shouts, "Get your hands out of your pockets where I can see them" as you reach for your cell phone? What could you do that wouldn't get you into legal trouble if he did happen to be a police officer and was either acting unlawful or if he was accidentally called to the wrong address and reasonably believed that giving "the suspect" time would hinder an arrest or put his life in danger?

People are always saying to go along with a police officer if you don't want to get tased, pepper sprayed, more legal trouble, etc, and to work it out in court later on. That's good if they have a uniform on. However, if he's in plain clothes and shows you a badge and ID, but doesn't want to allow you to call 911 or put your hands in your pocket, or worse pulls out a taser or firearm and says he doesn't have time for this, what do you do? If he's a fake, is he really going to wait for you to call 911? If he really is an officer, you'd be in trouble if you use force on him, and they'd probably say that you should have known better than to fight with police. They also have laws about using force on an officer or things like pepper spraying them, although I heard that in Texas they have laws allowing the use of force in some extreme situations. However, I don't live in Texas.

 

[Fred Fuller]

This what-if stuff is getting kinda far afield, I think.

Yes, there are "blue light rapists" every so often. Yes, various scumweasels masquerade as LEOs under various circumstances to various ill ends.

But the chances of most of us running across such an individual are pretty slim, unless there's a lot more of this going on than I'm aware of.

LEOs understand marked cars and uniforms. John Q. Public understands marked cars and uniforms. Often enough plain clothes, UC or off-duty LEOs get in shooting scrapes among themselves, and most are not going to deliberately set up a situation where that sort of thing is likely to happen. Unless something genuinely out of the ordinary is taking place, there will be LEOs in uniform and in marked cars handy enough to get one on scene pretty quickly.

Badges alone don't cut it when there's time to talk. Creds will come out too, often in the same ID carrier, if the holder is a legitimate LEO. Unreasonable demands backed up merely with suspect ID are not likely to garner compliance, from anyone who is being reasonably careful.

But there's no need to be paranoid about it.

lpl/nc