Who hasn’t, as a child, enjoyed a good game of “Cops and Robbers?” We all liked to pretend as kids, and many of us spent as much time arguing over who was the cop and who was the robber, as we did actually playing the assigned roles. But what happens when, in real life, the cop becomes the robber? Just such a thing happened-twice-in Denver this week, and the scenario is nightmarish, for Colorado criminal defense attorneys and everyone in Denver.
Impersonating a police officer is a very serious crime which in some states can range from a misdemeanor offense to a felony charge. In those states where misdemeanor level impersonation of a police officer exists, it would involve such things as attempting to arrest someone, writing bogus tickets, or similar acts where the perpetrator is pretending to be an officer of the law, but not committing other crimes as well.
However, in Colorado impersonation of a police officer is a felony and carries a sentence of up to eighteen months in jail. However, it is very often paired with other criminal charges which can vastly increase the associated jail time. Charges like this will affect the accused for the rest of his life-they are difficult to seal and can even affect your ability to get a job.
This particular scenario involved the alleged offender, described as a 5’7″ tall, clean-shaven Hispanic male, using a flashlight to pull cars over. When the cars had pulled over, the accused, who wore a dark, police-like uniform complete with badge, approached the car, and proceeded to rob the inhabitants. Two cars were robbed in this manner within a very short period of each other, both in the mid-morning/early afternoon hours.
The suspect is, as of this writing, still at large, and there is a reward for any information leading to his capture.
