It’s an age-old custom: A young officer, fresh out of FTO, gets their first assigned patrol unit. New or old, they’ll probably always remember the unit number and every distinct thing about their first mobile crimefighting office. For many, though, that eventually gives way to a deep desire to cruise in an unmarked ride, like most detectives do. For most agencies, patrol units are clearly marked, while administrative and investigative vehicles skip the decals. Then, of course, there’s the shadow workaround, where a car is outfitted with decals similarly colored to the car, barely discernible at all.
Several years ago, the Town of Stafford, Connecticut, took the unmarked experiment to a whole new level. They decided to make their entire fleet, including patrol vehicles, unmarked. The first selectman at the time, Sal Titus, claimed the move was meant to save on decal costs and combat speeding. The speeding argument is an old one, one of the most frequently cited justifications for enforcing the law without being readily identifiable. Advocates reason that offenders will not be able to identify patrol officers and slow down before being clocked, despite the fact that most patrol vehicles will still have identifying features such as spotlights or vehicle models common to law enforcement.
When the current first selectman, William Morrison, took office last November, he reversed the policy. “I think that it’s important that the citizens of town are able to identify police cruisers, most importantly if they need help,” he told the Journal Inquirer. This is, of course, the usual counterargument against unmarked cars. Morrison also pointed to a deterrent effect that takes place when drivers see police vehicles.
Predictably, the ACLU of Connecticut also weighed in on the issue of departments using unmarked cars. “This tactic creates a power dynamic with the public that we know disproportionately affects Black people and people of color, and can erode trust in our public safety officers,” executive director David McGuire said.
One issue that does not seem to have been prevalent in the Stafford debate is a basic one: Police officers wield great authority and need to be readily identifiable to the public. An agency in Florida encountered a striped-up Chevy truck whose decals proclaimed that it was performing “Booty Patrol” duties. Other than this tongue-in-cheek play on words, it looked remarkably like a Border Patrol vehicle and apparently had operational emergency lights. Most impersonation instances, though, don’t involve such intricate vehicle modifications. These acts typically steer clear of trying to copycat cop cars (such as this one or this one.) In our time of modern commerce, a fully marked police car remains one of the few items that is difficult for an impersonator to obtain. At the very least, not being in a fake, fully marked cruiser makes it easier for an impersonator to slink back into the crowd.
For Stafford, it’s back to the status quo on the decals. The state of Connecticut largely leaves the decision of whether to stripe patrol cars up to the local government. That seems to be the prevalent (though not absolute) rule across most of the states in the union. So, we can expect the debate to rage on.
