Wanna-be Cops

>> It's also possible that the car you saw used to be a cop car.

> I'm sure this is it, but I think these guys get off on trying
> to look like a cop.


There are people who enjoy that. I suspect that if they do get pulled
over, they might find out that real cops don't always care for
imitation ones. Anyway, if that's your goal, what easier way than
buying something at auction that already looks like a cop car?

They do get sold (usually at auction) to civilians, with varying
degrees of de-squadification, which sometimes seems to be limited to
removing the light bar and the bigger antennas, and sorta-removing the
insignia using a heat gun and a rattle can.


Other times they go through the trickle-down economy to impoverished
departments that can't afford new ones even at the highly favorable
prices usually negotiated by the government. They doubtless get a
chance to cream off the good ones that haven't been driven like you see
on TV too much, haven't had too many perps puke in the back, etc.


Taxicab fleets are another big user of surplus copmobiles in some
areas. I see lots of taxis that have the less controversial or harder
to remove cop features, like the springy pushing-bar thing in front,
the spotlight in the roof pillar, etc. still on; and of course they
also have antennas. (Of course, they also have a taxi flag on the
roof, and a repaint, in some stereotypically cabbish color, that
appears to have been applied with a sprinkling can and a helicopter.)



If it's a new car, he might have gotten in on a mass purchase of
police-spec vehicles by befriending the right dealer. Mass purchase?
Some states submit a cop-car order once a year, amassing the buying
power of as many agencies as they can talk into playing along.
Sometimes this even all goes through one dealer, who accepts low unit
profit in order to make easy money from an unfussy customer whose check
will most likely be good.

A final possibility is that non-sworn and maybe even non-police-related
government fleets in some places might get in on the same mass purchase
as the police, or eagerly accept the opportunity to get in line for the
better used cop cars.

Cheers,
--Joe