Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Trouble: Here's a disturbing Associated Press story:

Mistake No. 1: Impersonating a police officer. Mistake No. 2: Making a traffic stop. Mistake No. 3: Stopping an off-duty state trooper. Shalom Gelbman, 22, of New Square, N.Y., made all three mistakes, state police said.

Gelbman, with a strobe light on his dashboard and his high beams flashing, pulled a car over Wednesday night on the Palisades Interstate Parkway, police said. Inside the car was state Trooper Seamus Lyons, who arrested Gelbman. It was clear to Lyons that Gelbman wasn't a colleague, authorities said, because of his license plate number and the equipment he had in his car.

That's funny and all. But I'm a little perturbed that people go around pretending they're police officers. I don't know what Mr. Gelbman wanted to do with the people he pulled over, but thank goodness a real cop was there to stop him.