simont | Impersonating a police officer

Last night I walked over to cartesiandaemon's place at around 9pm, for a small gathering of people.

On the way there I approached a group of five rowdy-looking lads heading the other way along the pavement, who were roaring ‘wooorrr’ at each other. As I passed them, they suddenly went quiet, and as I walked away I heard one of them mutter behind me ‘Thought that was a PCSO for a moment’.

I certainly wasn't deliberately imitating a PCSO, or any other kind of official person. I was just walking along the street, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. Though I suppose, in retrospect, I did have straps visible on my torso, a complicated device hanging off my belt, was walking with a long and confident stride and jingling faintly as I went, so some or all of those might have contributed to such an impression. (The straps were attached to a rucksack containing a jumper and a bottle of wine, the device on my belt is a digital watch, the jingle was keys and spare change, and the gait signified a desire to get there quickly rather than a sense of authority and power, but I suppose they weren't to know any of that.)

So on the one hand it amused me at the time that I singlehandedly put the wind up five rowdies by accident. On the other hand, I did actually just go and look up the wording of the law on the web, to make sure it wasn't possible to accidentally commit illegal police impersonation!

(I don't think so, though. As I read the Police Act 1996 section 90, you have to either be deliberately trying to deceive, or have something that's distinctively police uniform or a badge or document.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It amuses me endlessly that *you* put the wind up anyone XD

Thank you, I think ;-)

"wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt ... straps visible on my torso, a complicated device hanging off my belt, was walking with a long and confident stride and jingling faintly as I went"

I stand by "ninja". Or possibly, "death" :)

But ninjas are masters of stealth! They certainly wouldn't jingle, and I doubt they'd go in for intimidating people on the street either. If you see a ninja and survive, the ninja will probably get a poor rating at their next performance review :-)

If death is an amiable ginger computer programmer I'm very, *very* disturbed.

Jim Bloggs?
"Huh? What happened – oh. Hang on, this can't be right. I'm sure I shouldn't be dead!"
Shouldn't you? What were you doing when it happened?
"Well, yesterday I ate some funny-tasting salmon mousse ..."
Not from a tin branded "Dibbler Tinned Fish Co.", by any chance?
"Yes, actually. Anyway, I had a bit of a stomach ache today and was feeling a bit off, then next thing I know I'm all transparent and my body is lying around my feet."
Ah, yes. I'm afraid that's a known bug.

Oh well played...

Mens rea (or intent) is important for most crimes. So, in order to impersonate a police officer, you've got to intend to do so, mostly.

(There are a few crimes where it's not true, and you can be done without having the intent to commit a crime. Carrying a knife in a public place is one of them. You are allowed to carry with a reason, but if you don't have a reason, then carrying the knife is an offence, even if you didn't intend to be offensive ;) )

Actually, come to think of it, that means I've now been mistaken both for law enforcement and for a drug criminal. Probably one of my imaginary personas should put the other one under arrest, or something :-)

Interesting - that occasionally happens to me. I do recall it being most amusing when a sober person pulled a drunk friend away from me with a "That's police, you idiot." I've also been taken as armed forced too.

I believe the kind of 'formal polite' speech and mannerisms that I tend to use trigger this false-pattern-matching sometimes. (Well, that and being large, tall and short-haired, in my case.)

Odd really, because I tend to think of both myself and you as being as un-police-like as you can get. Glad to hear neither of us are breaking the law.

(It is perhaps telling that that kind of civil-and-polite seems to be tagged as 'someone in authority' by some.)

Yes, now you mention it I suppose the short hair might have added to the image too. I tend to forget that aspect of myself most of the time (not least because I cut my hair short precisely so that I wouldn't have to think about it so often :-).

Frankly, that's fairly standard geek attire.

Maybe there should be a new offence of impersonating a geek, with which to threaten PCSOs who aren't wearing enough dayglo?

Might be helpful to define PCSO for non-English English speakers. It's fairly obvious what is, in context, but still.

One of these. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Community_Support_Officer

Impersonating a police officer

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject