Troll Outs Unmarked Cop Car Designed to Hand Out Speeding Tickets on Facebook
A New Zealand police department posted a shadowed out photo of a new unmarked car on Facebook, until a troll came and revealed its identity.
May 31 2021, Published 10:10 a.m. ET
There's a lot of controversies, especially in the US, surrounding fines that are issued by law enforcement. From Florida officers issuing "fake" tickets to the massive class-action lawsuits against the city of New York for "double-dipping" parking and traffic violations, strong arguments can be made that "protect and serve" should be changed to "extort and fleece."
It doesn't help matters either when undercover police vehicles, or all-blacked out unassuming dodge chargers are designed to visually fly under the radar rather than intentionally stand out. While some nations employ bright-colored cop cars that may help to curb crime or be easily spotted by those who need assistance, there are tons of places that rock "stealth" cruisers lurking in various nooks and crannies just waiting to hit you with a hefty fine.
And that's not just in the US, either. The Waikato Police Department in New Zealand made an almost ominous posting online about an unmarked car that they recently added to their fleet of vehicles.
The post read:
"Here is one of our new unmarked vehicles. I could show you but it would defeat the purpose..."
The post continued: "Don't see a police vehicle around? We might just be there anyway."
The post shows the shadowed-out car in the department's stable of cruisers, looking like an unlockable character in a fighting game. And while some may have found the post to be a little threatening, whoever's running the department's Facebook page definitely seems to have a sense of humor.
Whether it's putting up creative posts about valid "excuses" for speeding, honoring the services of Stormtroopers online, or poking fun at themselves for loving donuts, the Waikato Police department knows how to joke around.
However, we don't know if they're laughing at one Facebook user, Esteban Perez, using some photoshop lighting skills to reveal the exact make and model of the unmarked car online. Not only that, but the license plate number showed up in the image as well.
While there are probably tons of other models like it on the road, folks were cracking up online at Esteban's sheer audacity.
Some even went further to find out further details about the vehicle, adding to the "humiliation" sustained by the police department.
Other citizens concerned about police departments purchasing unmarked vehicles pointed out public information about the new cars. Even though the vehicles are supposed to be undercover cars, because they're bought with taxpayer dollars, folks have the right to know exactly what kind of cars they are.
The information was posted in an online document, which was a response to a public inquiry that wanted to know three things:
- How many vehicles were bought.
- The make and model of the vehicles.
- And the color of the vehicles.
The document read: "New Zealand police has recently introduced 24 unmarked highway patrol vehicles. The make and model is the Holden Equinox and the vehicles are red, blue, silver, and grey."
hereIf you're unfamiliar with Holden, they're owned by General Motors, so the Holden Equinox is basically a Chevrolet Equinox (for all the readers her in the colonies.)
The same Twitter user who posted links to the document also accused New Zealand Police of a long history of "racist f***ery."
New Zealand's race relations commissioner, Meng Foon also recently stated that police officers in the country are racist, but issued an apology doing so, as per the New Zealand Herald.
For many, Esteban's post just had them thinking about how much they disliked unmarked cars and how they were fundamentally problematic.
Others also shared horror stories of people masquerading as cops in faux-unmarked vehicles.
And even though some said that's a problem that's easily solved by simply calling emergency services on them, others showed how much trouble this could get a person in.
Some said that cops going undercover defeats the purpose of a police force in the first place.
Others just couldn't stop laughing at Esteban's ingenuity and how he was able to "stick it to the man."
Then there were those who didn't really see Esteban's post as "humiliating" pointing out that the original post was more of a joke.
What do you think? Do you have a gripe with unmarked cars? Or do you think that cops have a right to see what people are doing when they think "no one is watching"?
