“I don’t see a difference,” Grantham continued. “It’s no different than a real police car,” he said. Grantham said he’s not all that convinced that unmarked cars are the best way to enforce traffic laws. “And I think it’s just a matter of time and I want to try to get ahead of it.” “That has happened in other states,” he continued. “I’m actually fearful a young woman or a young man or whatever is going to be pulled out of their car at some point and put in the back seat of an unmarked fake police car and perhaps driven off and have some horrible crime committed against them,” Grantham said. “I’m terrified, just so you know, with the rash of these unmarked cars and these guys dressed in what appears to be some sort of uniform pulling over folks randomly in the middle of our city and issuing them tickets.”Ī ticket, though, is the least of his worries. “It gives the public some peace of mind,” Grantham said. At that point, he said, the motorist can be assured that it’s a real officer making the stop and not someone playing a cop. What that means, Grantham said, is anyone who is stopped by what appears to be an unmarked vehicle can demand that the person making the stop open the right side door of the vehicle to display the marking. But at the very least it would have to have the name and logo of the law enforcement agency on the right door.Īnd anyone using that vehicle would have to be dressed in an official law enforcement uniform, “including shoulder patches, a badge and any other identifying insignia normally used by the employing law enforcement agency.”
It would not need the lights on top or the markings all around. Instead, police could use what the measure calls a “specially marked” law enforcement vehicle. “I don’t want to see our police departments, which I love, going to these fully undercover, unmarked, super-secret police type tactics, which I actually think can be quite dangerous.”īut the driving force, Grantham said, is making the driving public skeptical of being pulled over by anything that doesn’t look like a police car.Īs crafted, HB 2830 forbids the use of anything that’s totally unmarked for traffic enforcement. “There’s no better way than a real police car, with a uniformed police officer in it, with lights all over it and markings all over it, that, in itself, prevents crime,” he said.
“I just don’t want to encourage law enforcement to go undercover on the general public all the time,” Grantham told Capitol Media Services.
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