Here’s A Twist: Citizen Pulls Cop Over [Video]

If you like good twists on the typical story, then you are going to love this article.

In Washington State, a citizen pulled a cop over. Seriously. A citizen pulled a cop over.

The citizen, Gavin Seim, pulled the officer over for driving an unmarked unit. We’ll let the citizen who pulled the cop over tell you why he took such action (per his personal blog).

“In Washington we have unmarked police vehicles impersonating citizens. If you think it’s not a serious issue, try asking those that have been raped or lost loves ones because of unmarked cars. It’s already illegal in WA for public vehicles to be unmarked, unless designated for ‘special undercover or confidential investigative purposes.'”

With that as the background, let us look to Seim for a further explanation of the stop in question.

“Ordinary looking unmarked police cars slink around and entrap, so they can write folks up (read tax) for petty faults. That’s not protecting. As my brother Blake says, ‘serve and protect, not harass and collect.’ — But this is also a major safety issue. Unmarked vehicles are a ripe opportunity for confusion in a citizens reaction and for criminals to impersonate lawful authority to get people to stop.

“People have been raped and even murdered because of this, so the law is good sense. In WA, all municipal and police vehicles must be marked UNLESS they fall under special exemptions. These exemptions do not apply to patrol vehicles. There’s even a past WA State court precedent where a man fled police and his felony charge was thrown out because the pursuing vehicle was not legal. Pretty interesting. There have also been traffic infractions thrown out because the officers car was not marked.”

The officer in question is actually quite nice about the traffic stop considering the fact that many officers may not have taken being pulled over by a citizen so well. The entire five plus minutes of YouTube video is worth the watch.

And Seim’s concern regarding fake cops appears to be a nightmare coming to life in Detroit, Michigan, where the Inquisitr reported last year that unmarked “cops” were pulling drivers over and then robbing them on the spot.

What do you think? Did Seim go too far? Is there anything to fear from unmarked cars? Tell us in the comments section below.

[Image via Screenshot/YouTube]