An 18-year-old flipped on his red and blue lights, trying to initiate a traffic stop on another vehicle.
He just didn’t know the woman driving the other car was a real cop, according to a Michigan sheriff’s office.
The real cop — an off-duty police officer with the Waterford Township Police Department — said she was driving in Rochester Hills when she encountered the “police impersonator” at about 11 p.m. on Monday, April 3, authorities said.
She reported he was driving a silver BMW with flashing lights, and she said he pulled his vehicle behind hers, as though he was pulling her over, according to a news release from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
The “phony cop” passed the real officer, authorities said, “and she followed him to confront him.”
She identified herself as an officer and asked the man for his identification, officials said.
“He claimed he was (a) Detroit police officer from the 12th Precinct,” according to the release. “She asked him for identification, and he said he needed to retrieve it from his car.”
The fake cop went back to the silver BMW and drove away, authorities said. The off-duty cop followed him to a Shelby Township trailer park but lost sight of him.
Responding deputies found the man and the silver BMW as he was switching license plates from that car to another of his BMWs, according to the release.
He tried to run, authorities said, but was arrested and charged with impersonating a public officer.
“Karma bites,” authorities said.
The man was arraigned on April 5, authorities said, and released on a $5,000 bond.
Rochester Hills is about 30 miles north of downtown Detroit.
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