"POL1CE"
I stopped this one last night fully planning on seeing a fellow LEO. A neighboring city has some unmarked vehicles for traffic, but have these plates, so I was assuming it was a new vehicle I'd never seen before. This was on a dark pickup. If it wasn't legit, I thought the plates might have also been taken off a real LEO car as a 'joke'. I lit it up and walked up there.... paused...... noticed the "1" vs the "I" and then saw the driver, a younger kid. Told them I'd stopped them for the plates and it probably wouldn't be the last time they were ever stopped. They said they'd had the plates for several months and that the DOT/DMV 'approved' the plate beforehand. I let them on their way soon after. But...
I pulled a call for service to enter comments for the traffic stop (we don't normally do this). Admin was going to check with the DOT/DMV. I articulated that the general public, from a distance, might mistake the "1" for an "I" as I did and think that the vehicle was and LEO vehicle. I made the argument of impersonation.
Why, or why???? Some people's thinking...