A West Hollywood police impersonator arrested over the weekend was hit with multiple charges. According to police reports, Dennis Meade tried to pull somebody over while driving an unmarked SUV and using sirens and lights as police do. It’s unknown whether the driver he attempted to pull over noticed he wasn’t actually a police officer, or if real cops showed up and sniffed out his ruse. Regardless, Meade was charged with misdemeanor impersonating an officer, felony illegal possession of a firearm and misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon.
Impersonating an officer is covered under California Penal Code 538d PC and is described as:
- Willfully wearing, using or exhibiting the authorized uniform, emblem, insignia, device, label, certificate, card or writing of a peace officer, with the intent of fraudulently impersonating a police officer or fraudulently inducing the belief that you are a police officer
- Willfully wearing, using or exhibiting the badge of a peace officer or a fake peace officer’s badge, with the intent of fraudulently impersonating a peace officer or fraudulently inducing the belief that you are a peace officer and
- Willfully making, lending, selling, giving or transferring to someone else any badge, insignia, emblem, device label, certificate, card or writing which purports or appears to be authorized by use for peace officers.
There are some rather obvious exceptions to the above law, with the most common being Halloween costumes. The important part of the law above isn’t that an individual dresses up as a police officer, but that they fraudulently induce the belief in someone else that the individual actually is a police officer.
538d PC is a misdemeanor, and the possible penalties include 1-year of summary probation, up to 6-months in county jail and/or a $1,000 fine. However, if a badge is used to impersonate an officer, no matter if the badge is real or fake, the possible penalties are increased to up to 1-year in county jail and a fine of up to $2,000.
