When driving between Draper and Murray on Interstate 15 early Friday morning, a Utah woman believes that a “fake cop” tried pulling her over.
The woman named Tori says that whoever tried pulling her over at around 2 a.m. that morning was driving really aggressively and started flashing green and blue lights similar to a cop car, but that the green lights gave away that it couldn’t be a real officer.
Tori continued northbound on I-15 before the silver pickup truck, while still flashing its lights, cut in front of her and forced her to stop in the middle of a West Jordan intersection. Tori says that when the man got out of his car to yell at her, it looked like he was wearing a cop costume from Spirit Halloween and not an official-looking uniform.
With all these red flags, she called 911 and managed to scare the fake cop away.
Sgt. Melody Cutler with the Unified Police Department later enforced the idea that impersonating an officer is a misdemeanor and is punishable by jail time. Cutler says that she’s seen cop impersonations happen way too many times throughout her career, explaining that many want to be police officers but aren’t hired by agencies so they decide to go out and impersonate officers for whatever reason.
Cutler reminds everyone to be cautious during these situations and if you believe a fake cop is following you, call 911 and dispatchers can verify if it’s a real officer.
