Twin Cities Man Impersonates Police to Avoid Traffic, Gets Busted When He Passes Squad Car

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you're going to impersonate a police officer, it's best not to do so near an actual police officer.

Which is something Steven Etsy, of Falcon Heights, near St. Paul, probably knows. At least he does now. He apparently didn't earlier this week, after he was busted for having red and blue police-like lights on his car and was spotted driving along the should of I-94 in the Twin Cities to avoid traffic.

The problem was, one of the cars sitting in traffic that he passed happened to be a Minnesota State Patrol squad car. The trooper, of course, noticed Etsy bypassing all the traffic on should along I-94 earlier this week and started to follow him. Oops.

According to the Pioneer Press, when police finally pulled Etsy over, the noted he had his GMC Yukon not only decked out with the flashing lights on the dash, but also "lights in the rear window, a radar detector, a mounted digital camera and a remote for a siren," the story said.

As you might guess, that's illegal here in Minnesota. As is driving along the shoulder to avoid those pesky traffic back-ups. For his part, the story said Etsy claimed he was driving to see his mom who was in the hospital, and that he didn't know having those police-like lights in your car was a no-no.

That excuse was pretty much shot, though, when police noted he'd been cited for having similar lights nearly three years ago. He's been cited with "prohibited lights and driving off the traveled portion of the road to pass traffic, which are petty misdemeanors. Impersonating a police officer is a misdemeanor," the story said.