I went to a Halloween party with a couple of neighbors the other night, one of whom has just moved to Atlanta from Paris. He travels a lot, and lived in Buenos Aires for a few years, but has never lived in a country where they celebrate Halloween. When I told him about the party, he was more than a bit skeptical. “But, what do you dress as? Everyone dresses like this? Adults and everyone?” I assured him that, yes, everyone dresses up for Halloween, at least for Halloween parties, and that he’d feel out of place if he were not in costume.
The next day he called me from the costume store. “What should I get? They don’t have Louis Quatorze.” I made a few suggestions, none to his liking. He said he’d find something. Later he called me back. “As public defender, you don’t hate cops, do you? I think I found a costume. You have to wait to see what it is.”
So, yeah, he was a cop, in the style of the Irish cop on the beat from Prohibition-era movies, the kind with the wide belt worn really high on the waist. My friend Joanna was Paris Hilton with jail numbers, so that was a nice coincidence. The funny thing was, Jean-Francois was really into the whole costume thing once we got out. “You there, passport, please,” he would say, pointing at a random pedestrian. “You, give me a hundred dollars. I am corrupt cop. Pay me and you can do whatever.”
It hit me that it probably wasn’t the costume thing so much as the cop thing. Apparently, wearing a police uniform, pretending to be a police officer, has a universal appeal. One of my friends is defending the City of Atlanta on a civil suit for false arrest filed by a former cop. The guy’s case isn’t so much false arrest as it is false dismissal, from what I heard. The arrestee was a retired cop working some parking attendant job near Turner Field. He dressed in full cop gear, including a vest that said “Police,” and was directing traffic and taking money for parking. Some people called the police department and complained that a uniformed officer was taking money from people, so they sent some guys to check it out. Whole thing is on tape, including the part where the officers ask the guy to please just take off the vest– or heck, even turn it inside out. He refused, so they arrested him for impersonating an officer. The D.A.’s office declined to prosecute, so he sued for false arrest.
Then there was the first guy I ever knew who got arrested for impersonating an officer. He was middle-class, white and impatient. I represented him at first appearance, and I figured that it might have been a joke taken too seriously, or maybe taken too far. At first appearance, we almost never get too much into the facts of the case, just get our clients set up for their next hearing. Besides, they generally won’t tell me about anything that happened, preferring to wait and spill their guts to the judge and prosecutor, who they are convinced will dismiss it if they just hear their side of the story. So I didn’t really get to hear details about his case, just the basic charge. I figured there were equal chances that he had been arrested on a misunderstanding or that he was a dangerous kook who pretended to be a cop so he could abduct women. He kept focusing on his bond, totally ignoring the procedural issue of what to do with his case, so I put the odds way more in favor of a misunderstanding based on a boneheaded joke. Surely criminal masterminds have enough cunning to be able to forget about bond for a second and think about how they want to proceed with their case.
Turns out I was overthinking it, or maybe overestimating criminal masterminds. The woman from Pretrial Release kept hissing at me every time my client tried to get my attention. “Don’t talk to him anymore!” she’d spit, eyes bulging. “You’ve talked to him enough!” “What the heck’s up with her?” I’d think, merrily going back to answer the same question a fourth time. Finally she grabbed my arm. “You don’t need to be talking to him. He’s been charged with embalming without a license.”
Oh. An amateur undertaker who impersonates cops.
Well, at least I know what Jean-Francois can be next year….
