This cop that lives in my neighborhood, who is really a cop stopped me and threatened me to give me a citation for all the stop signs that I've ran in my neighborhood if I don't stop running them, but the thing is, he was not in uniform when he stopped me, could this be something of false impersonation?

No, from your description this person is actually a police officer. When your on the force your actually on it 24/7. You may get to punch in and out for the purpose of the shift. (on/off duty) but that has nothing to do with police powers.

Agree with califdad! And you were lucky. He probably didn't have his ticket pad with him and the time to fill it out.

He can give you a ticket in his underwear if the offense is serious enough. A police officer is a police officer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Only his department may have rules about writing tickets if not on duty. But he can detain you, call a officer on duty, and have them write a ticket.

Also while not common, a officer who witnesses a traffic violation can days latter write a ticket for it.


This is not impersonation, since he is a police officer.

Can I just point out the obvious here... you shouldn't be running stop signs anyway. You should consider yourself lucky that he only warned you.