What is OIF?
It is not illegal to DRESS as a police officer, but to IMPERSONATE one. I used to be a paramedic/firefighter. I had a police scanner in my car, and carried a legitimate badge. Once someone tried to cut me off, and I didn't let him. He was behind me, and started flashing his headlights, and wielded a badge. Knowing better since I carried my own badge, I called the police (yeah - had a cell phone back in 1993 - lol). I stayed on the line with the dispatcher while listening to police on the radio (I had a permit to have the scanner), and guided them to the guy. He had been following the guy in the truck that was in front of me, and didn't like that I'd gotten between them at a 4-way stop. He tried to pass me in a 30 mph no passing zone in front of the school that my kid was in, a kindergartener.
The guy evaded for a short time, doing a u-turn on a via-duct, but from my info, the police were able to find him. He had pulled into the bar he was meeting his friend at, threw the badge in the back of the friend's truck, and went inside. Police found the badge, which was some kind of Illiniois election official badge (we were in Porter, IN), and questioned him, and called the Illinois election people. They confiscated the badge, not because he broke the law, but because the Illinois people told them that he should no longer have their badge, that he had left that position long ago. I asked the police about impersonating an officer because he tried to get me to pull over, and they said that they could not charge him with that because I didn't pull over. Even though he had intent, he hadn't found a fool that would pull over, so they couldn't press it. And these officers weren't trying to get out of work. I knew them, and my brother was a cop in the next town as well, and they knew it. Their hands were tied. For whatever reason, a person has to actually BELIEVE (at least in IN at that time) that a person is an officer, before they can charge that person with impersonating one.
