Impersonating a police officer is a tactic sometimes used by criminals to win victims’ trust, police say.
When the gunman in the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers approached their homes early on Saturday morning, he was armed with not just a handgun but also a wealth of other gear: a black tactical vest, a badge, a flashlight, a Taser. He arrived in a black S.U.V. with flashing police lights.
“No question, if they were in this room, you would assume they were a police officer,” Mark Bruley, the police chief of Brooklyn Park, Minn., said not long after the shootings, as officers searched for a suspect.
On Monday, state and federal authorities investigating the case filed murder and other charges against Vance Boelter, a Minnesota resident who was in the process of starting his own private security company.
The killings were the latest in a long history of crimes committed by people who won the trust of victims by posing as law enforcement officers. Among the more well-known cases was a prank caller who posed as a police officer to convince a McDonald’s manager in Kentucky to strip search an employee in 2004, and a man who was convicted of murdering a Long Island man in 2005 after pulling him over on the road with flashing lights on his S.U.V.
And this year, amid high-profile immigration raids conducted by federal authorities, several people have been arrested and accused of impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in order to threaten and intimidate others.
In the Minnesota shootings this weekend, officials said, the suspect was even able to fool a real officer.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
