Got to love spray paint, Part 2

While shopping today I saw our old friend, the spray paint police cruiser. I noticed the unit had a light bar on it so I investigated. The unit now sported a Red and Blue Vista light bar that was wired up to a SVP hand held siren/light controller laying on the passenger seat. The same disarray of wiring and cut cord radio mics were still present. The dash mounted Firebeam obtained a red lens so now it was red/clear. This time I spied a uniform hanging in the back seat so I looked closer. It was a dress uniform with a sewn on "Police Officer" badge patch with black pants with a gold stripe. There is peeling tint on the back window so it was hard to see. Closer looking found a security guard ID card. The "uniform" also had captain's bars, a traffic whistle, and a "Combat Infantry" blue shoulder cord. With the condition of the car, I doubt this is a police captain and I couldn't find the company name listed on the ID card anywhere, on or off line. My guess is it is another wannabe police/security startup company since they like to go with police vehicles and unauthorized emergency lighting to be like the real thing.

Also celebrate with http://www.policeposers.com as we were mentioned in our first news article on LongmontFYI regarding the whacker imposters featured in our last article. You can also find out the results of the lighting communities collective action here and here. Great job on those who helped get these kids reported to the proper authorities.

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Impersonator or the real thing, you be the judge.

This is a submission from Brian B posted at elightbars.org.

I don't know if anyone can top this one...

ENG17INE originally posted this link asking about the lights on the vehicles pictured. I innocently watched it... and my jaw dropped. This YouTube is probably the singular most self-indulgent piece of whackerdom know to man.

It appears to be three late teenage suburban uberdorks from Colorado who tape their escapades when responding to "motorist assist calls." The vehicles are [of course] replete with a ton of red/white lights, sirens and wig-wags.

The best part is when this squad of rimjobbers comes piling out of their vehicle to encounter the disabled motorists.

One guy is wearing a US Ski Patrol puffy parka, another in an ANSI jacket that says something like "EMERGENCY SERVICES" across the shoulders and the third, likely the "leader" bounds out in a CIVIL AIR PATROL (the whackers of the sky) RAID JACKET and unkonown drop-leg holster!

The last time I checked, the CAP was a CIVILIAN auxilliary group of senile old men reminiscing about the Great War and pimply-faced kids in festooned uniforms with Chuck Yeager pipe-dreams. They are not, by USAF charter permitted to carry weapons, or conduct ad-hoc TRAFFIC PATROLS. But alas, this CAP-keteer has the full cop thing down. Watch the video, notice his position as the "overwatch", how he backs away from the cars and certainly get a load of that piece he's got strapped to his leg...

In all, they sure don't seem to be doing any "assisting" other than interrogating the stopped motorists, like a cop....then leaving. What a bunch of losers.

Straight from South Park, it's Timmah's Posse!

The link for those who missed it in the article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FgAjJikP8k

06/16/07: The author has removed the video from YouTube.

06/17/07: Back online! The video has been uploaded to Google Videos here.

06/27/07: UPDATE: Denver news story on these impersonators. Click Here!

Got to love spray paint.

I posted this on the forums and intended to post it here too. I found this beauty while shopping, it was sitting in a "box" store parking lot. I saw it on my way in and on my way out with no sightings of the owner. This just demonstrates what steps people will take to look official. Click on the thumbnails below to see the full size photo.

Car had a hand painted (with spray paint) black over gold paint job. There was gold overspray on the trim. Car still had one of the original spot lights, a push bumper along with the mounting straps from when it still had a light bar. The owner mounted a BP100 speaker to the push bumper kind of like what the local law enforcement agencies used to have. He used different types of bolts and the bracket was bent as you could tell.

To add to this delight, the owner added a clear firebeam with mirror to the dash along with generic amber/red halogen lights to the rear deck along with a mag mount antenna that wasn't hooked to anything. Unit had no other equipment other than a couple of microphones for Kenwood radios that weren't hooked to anything and were just in their holders mounted on the dash. To add to the “realism”, the owner mounted mailbox stickers on the rear bumper saying “DPS91”. The car as a whole was in rough shape and was well used/worn. The spray paint was put own by an amateur and was already flaking off. There was no mistake that this guy was looking for the police car look.

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From Our Fan Mail Files

First we have a seventeen year old kid from myspace who thinks we "need to chill and just look the other way"

i am totally in agreement with you

no one should have lightbars/strobes....whatever if they are not real LEOs or EMS/Fire and even if they are they should stay up with current research which points to less lighting but effective use of LED lights. however, you have gone a bit overboard. you dont need to make a website and than a myspace dedicated to finding people with a distaste for whackers. i think that if lights on their trucks makes em happy, so mote it be. i dont think their is an inadequecy or power issues i just think people find lights cool so they install them.

like i said chill out and just let it go. you will feel better when your not maintaing two websites and a forum whos purpose is bashing a group of people. step back and look at yourself your a grown man on the internet bashing people for putting lights in their cars. no matter how you break it down, it ends up that they are just lights and people will always do things if they can get away with them.

My Response:

Sorry, but I'm not one to turn my back on a growing situation and hope it just solves itself. That's something small children do with the boogie man in their closet. Your argument here is very single sided and for your age, that doesn't surprise me. The opinion "if it bothers you just let it go since you can't do anything about it" is something I would expect from a peace activist. Sorry, nothing gets done in this world without being proactive and stepping up to the plate. The main point of my web site (I only have one, not two) is to paint a face on the term whacker and wannabe. I designed it as a reference with a small blog to give it new content and to keep things moving. Against popular opinion I don't stress about it when I'm not dealing with the web site. Like having a full time job, I don't dwell about the work when I go home. Although I might think about it every once in awhile, I don't think about it constantly.

You make it sound like I am alone in this war on whackers. You make it sound like no one cares if they abuse lights other than me. Actually, I have plenty supporters on my views and my web site has been mentioned in several dozen spots on the internet in a positive way. I get at least 5 emails a week telling me how good of a job I am doing with the web site.

I use the myspace page as free advertising. I post the occasional blog to keep the myspace kids happy but I rarely change it other than the layout. Everyone has an opinion and you're entitled to yours and I'm entitled to mine. If you don't like the web site or the myspace page, take your own advice and turn you back on them and they won't bother you anymore.

Him Again:

its well and all that someone cares than

maybe you should work to get some legislation passed you know...write to your area representative.....the democrats would be more than happy to sponsor restrictive measures on vehicle lighting.

And this whacker was mad because a police officer told him to come here to see what a whacker was. I took out the cuss word but left eveything as is.

sup

i guess im a wacker by your webpage...i was given your webpage by some pigs that stoped me...i have a yello bar lite on my picup and am glad i have it...i help with rode side brake downs and ne time i can find to use thm...ne ways i got pulled over by a pig cuz i flashd my lites at some idiot that cut me off...juts like flashin your headlites at them so who cares...ne ways...pig yells at me n tells me to keep the lites off when im on the rode...he give me a ticket for ilegal device and told me to drop the lites...pig then calls me a wacker and tells me to come to tis webpage...he put the page adress on the back of my ticket...wat a ***hole...if the big bro didnt want me to have lites then he would ban them...yer juts a hater...get a life...

If you are going to write me an email, there are plenty of spell checkers on the internet. It makes it easier for everyone to read when you check your spelling and grammar first.

I stumbled across your blog while researching the use of amber lightbars in storm chasing vehicles. First off, I want to say that I do have an amber/clear strobe in my dash that is covered when not used. It is only uncovered in the event that the weather gets so bad during a chase that not using it could be dangerous. Second, I do not plan on becoming a firefighter, police officer, or practising EMT. I have no intention once so ever of making my vehicle look official, or of trying to be an emergency official. I wanted to know if that setup constitutes what you would call a "whacker".

I believe that I have a legitimate use for the light, and I dont view the light as obbessivly as your website does. I think of my light just as I think of my camera, it is a tool. Just because I carry a nice camera does not mean I claim to be a photographer. Just because I, and many others, use emergency lighting does not mean we claim to be Emergency Response personnal.

Just my two cents

thanks,

Dave

and of course, my response,

Thank you for your letter. The top article was written specifically for storm chaser topic here

To be honest, if the light stays in 365 days a year, it does raise an eyebrow since it's only a dash light and can be easily removed. During storm season I would wonder why you have a dash light that is facing the front. It should be facing the rear since storm chaser lighting is to warn other motorist since they are creating a traffic hazard as they might be driving slow or even stopped. I've actually never seen a storm chaser that uses a dash light as a sole warning device. I don't see how a light could make driving any better during storm chasing either. That's my opinion, take it as you wish.

There was one other letter but I decided not to post it as it was largely positive and the person is learning form their mistakes of being a whacker. A Bio page should be up later today. Basically it goes over my personal whacker stories and explains a little bit on why I created this web site. Also be sure to check out our sister web site http://www.nationallightlaw.com. A web site dedicated to discussing a national light law standard. It is a work in progress so it will be under construction for bit.

Special Update: "Colonel" Paul Broussard Arrested.

For those of you who don't know who Paul is, here's a brief run down. Paul started a REACT group and outfitted his vehicles with a number of decals to imitate law enforcement vehicles.Paul even changed what the acronym of REACT from "Radio Emergency Associtated Communications Team" to "Radio Emergency Action Communications Team" to make his club name sound better. Paul stated in numerous interviews and online articles that he preferred to be called "Colonel". Paul also tried to run as governor and as police chief. Paul was a self proclaimed security consultant and in the past owned two Ford Tauruses outfitted like police vehicles with decals, lights, radios, and possibly sirens as part of his REACT vehicle collection. When those vehicles were totaled in a storm according to him, he outfitted an older Chevy Suburban with the same collection of decals, lights, siren, and radios. This time the vehicle was outfitted with the infamous “K9” stickers that most imposters have on their vehicles’.

Today, it was reported Paul was involved with a stand off with police that resulted in shots fired and thankfully no one was killed and the injuries were only reported as minor.

This is a message for those who people who are whackers or wannabes are OK since they aren’t hurting anyone. I receive emails every once in awhile telling me that whackers and wannabes are just misunderstood and there is nothing wrong with having a lot of lights on a vehicle or wearing police style clothing or equipment around as everyday wear. The above is a good example of an end result of a wannabe that went unchecked too long.

Now for some links to this story and some photos:

His Yahoo Profile

His "Home" Page

The news story of his stand off.

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Enjoy!

Building up for the fun update next week.

No big update this week. I will be posting several "fan" mail letters for next week's update. I decided to announce that I have started the web site www.NationalLightLaw.com to discuss a national lighting standard. Bookmark it. The web site is still under construction but I have made some categories on the message board for it so people can discuss it. If you have any opinions or ideas for the new site, stop in and post them on the forums. Enjoy!

Sticking it to Sticker Whackers

A thread was started in our forums over “sticker/decal whackers”. These are people who plaster stickers all over their vehicle advertising their occupation, usually a volunteer hobby. A large portion of these sticker whackers are volunteer fire fighters and EMT’s. A look at one of these vehicles will usually find some derogatory stickers such as “find them hot, leave them wet” or “Chicks dig Fire Fighters”. Funny or cool to them but tacky to almost everyone else.

The owners of these vehicles don’t think volunteering and helping the community is enough so they feel the need to advertise it for everyone to see. The owners of these vehicles also are more gun-ho than other members of their departments and boarder the realm of being a wannabe full timer. These owners will probably have an overzealous lighting setup on their vehicle with other items to make them stand out from the rest. Like seen in the “ricer” vehicle culture, the sticker mentality is one of applying stickers to make up for something the vehicle or owner is lacking. In ricer groups, they make comments like “each sticker gives the car 5hp more” and so forth. The volunteer sticker whackers are no different. The owners might think having more stickers on their vehicle is cool but they don’t and refuse to realize that everyone else makes fun of their stickers. A lot of times the stickers make it onto the vehicles shortly after they become a member of their volunteer department and most likely before their first call.

The stickers are like badges to these people. In their own mind they think more "badges" equals to adding to the coolness factor. The same principle goes for whackers and their lights, imposters and their items to confuse the public.