I own an auto shop. We had a customer bring his vehicle in who just so happens to be a relative of one of my employees. He’s also a firefighter. At one point he was in the process of getting hired as a deputy, or was going through the POST process, but nothing ever came of it, don’t know why, but I can make a few guesses. He loved to parade around in his Sheriffs cap with his sidearm and radio.
Anyways, my employee went to pull the truck out of the shop, and all of the factory lighting starting strobing. I looked over and was like, “What the hell did you do to it?” Apparently he hit a little toggle switch on the dash with his knee when he got in. We played around with that, wondered what the hell it was for, and then I found more switches. Turns out, there’s reds and blues in the front and back windows, behind the grille, and a siren.
Come to find out, my employee previously knew of the lights, and had seen the customer use them in a personal manner before. I.e, passing someone on the highway.
I already knew this was illegal, just not to what degree, so I went and looked up the law (Colorado), and then went and talked to my neighbor who is a firefighter and paramedic and showed him the lights. This truck is blacked out and debadged and could very easily pass as a cop car. My buddy was pissed, told me this guy has been told by the chief of police to take the lights out of his previous vehicle, so he had warning.
I called it in to dispatch and talked to a Sheriff’s deputy, explained everything with names and plate number, read them the text of the law. They seemed ambivalent, and basically said the customer could possibly get a citation.
A month later, those lights are still on the truck, and to the best of my knowledge, he doesn’t even know there was a complaint. (I’m pretty sure I would have heard).
It all just seems wrong to me. There is no justifiable legal purpose for a non-law enforcement officer to have these lights on a personal vehicle, and he’s been known to use them for personal gain. Should I just let it go? Or should I escalate, and if so, what should I do? I’ve already reported to the Sheriff.
TL;DR: guy has police lights on his truck, I reported to dispatch, nothing happened.
Comments
I know you said you did your due diligence on looking up laws, but that’s 100% the douche that will say the fire chief let him do it or something like that. We had a rash of volunteers run red and blues and we had to sit down with them all and have a talk about it.
I’m all about frying the guy, especially if he’s had warnings and was seen using them to pass people on the highway. He’s going to get brave enough one day and use them for a nefarious reason. It wouldn’t hurt to speak with higher-ups at the firehouse he works at either and express your concern.
If you keep going with this just be warned that it’ll be kicked down the road a lot. Most cops will want (most likely need depending on statue) to see him or have video evidence of him using them.
But yeah. F that dude.
Not sure what CO law is, but in my state even having blue lights installed in a non law enforcement vehicle/without authorization is a misdemeanor. If it’s only a traffic citation in CO I wouldn’t expect anyone to go out of their way to investigate it further. You can always escalate it up the chain of command if you feel the need to. I hate LEO impersonators and have charged several people with having blue lights installed here.
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It’s not illegal to have, but illegal to use is my understanding.
NC is strict. For those old enough to remember the blue light bandit, you understand why..
“It is unlawful for any person to possess a blue light or to install, activate, or operate a blue light in or on any vehicle in this State, except for a publicly owned vehicle used for law enforcement purposes or any other vehicle when used by law enforcement officers in the performance of their official duties.”
As far as Florida goes, can have lights on the vehicle, just can’t be used on public roads.
In NY, you can have whatever you want – just don’t use them on a public roadway. The dispatchers response jives with what I’d tell you: unless I witness someone using them, there’s not much to be done.
And, honestly, calling the Sheriff’s Department just because you know they’re installed on the truck is a little overreach.