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This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

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Reports of a Police Impersonator In West Hollywood Were Greatly Exaggerated

impersonator1.jpg
Photo by @dino101 via Twitter

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We hate to break it to you like this, but there was not a car full of police impersonators roving around West Hollywood this afternoon.

Los Angeles police got a call that a driver was pretending to be a police officer near Santa Monica and Fairfax around 4:25pm. LAPD booted the call over to the West Hollywood sheriff's station when the alleged impersonator crossed municipal boundaries. By the time sheriff's deputies pulled over the car and cuffed the alleged suspects, they were in front of The Abbey in West Hollywood. If the car had been full of the kind of police impersonators you expect to see in West Hollywood, it would have been a great stunt for aspiring reality TV stars.

Alas, there were no uniforms, no cuffs, just five women who managed to piss off another driver. WeHo Daily first tweeted about the call, and fortunately Australian drag queen Courtney Act was live on the scene to interview the women after they were arrested and released, "ok I got the story from the Lesbians mouth! They were playing a song with loud sirens in it and they got arrested for [impersonating] police officers."

The LAPD confirmed that no one was actually impersonating a police officer. "I think it was just some sort of motorist being annoyed," LAPD Officer Karen Rayner told LAist.com.

Act said she snapped this photo with the women after they were released:


Photo by @courtneyact via Twitter

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