Beware of this unmarked cop

Whoa, I wonder if this would have been entrapment. Coming back from Redmond Town Center today and heading up the 520 onramp a black Merc AMG sedan floors it and screams past me, obviously to engage. I would have bit but my radar went off the screen so I slowly merge onto 520. Still getting soft KA signals but don't see anyone. Pull to the right to take the 40th exit and The black Merc cuts over the shoulder in front of me and hammers it one more time. WHAM goes the radar again, where is the trooper? Pull up to the lights right behind the Merc and pretty sure I saw strobes in the tinted windows.

If I would have "bit" and he pulled me over would that be entrapment? Probably not, right?

 

What the heck? Did you get a look at his plates? I'm pretty sure that cops, undercover or not, have exempt plates with no tabs.

As to the entrapment, it sure sounds like baiting you into speeding would be but I imagine it'd be hard to prove.

 

soft ka can also sometimes come from jammers. are you sure the car was unmarked? could there have been something else funny reflecting or did you see that it was actually a police dude driving the car?

 

Possibly the Merc had a poor radar detector emitting signals that your detector saw only when close. So not a cop at all?

 

Definitely could be something else, only saw it for a second. Passenger can't confirm. Never did have a false/positive KA signal before.

 

They don't need exempt plates

 

Quite a few WSP and Snohomish County Sherriffs run unmarked vehicles with standard plates,getting harder to spot them !

 

Lately I have seen a black Mustang, a pick up, an SUV, and a Ford sedan, all unmarked WSP.

 

Maybe the property room had a seized Merc gathering dust.

There is on trick you could try if you get close again. As Bob pointed out there are a lot of unmarked cars trying to blend in to traffic. If one of them tries to pull you over you can call 9-1-1 to verify it. If it is legit the dispatch will confirm that it is a real police car, and probably advise you to pull over. Trick is getting past the part where they are not really pulling you over.

 

Not trying to be a killjoy, but is it at all possible you DIDN'T see strobes in the windows,
but just THOUGHT you did?

Maybe it was in reality a guy in an AMG playing with you after all?

Just playing devil's advocate....

Jedi

 

Never seen WSP with a BMW or Mercedes, but I see almost every flavor of domestic car, as I am on the road a lot during the week. Years ago, they did have a taxi cab driving on I-5 between Tacoma and Seattle, it was marked "Speedco" and had all the usual taxi cab stuff on it. They also had a Volvo station wagon too.

 

Yeah, fully agree as time goes on I start to question what I saw. But the false A/B read was the first time in 5 years with this radar so that was what puzzled me.

 

Have the Redmond police struck gold?? A Merc AMG?? I doubt it and yet there is that small Italian town with a Lambo police car.

 

Tonight after 9PM a WSP pickup truck had its police lights flashing and had pulled over behind someone on southbound 405 by 160th in Bothell.

 

When BMW first came to the US they offered South Carolina three M5 sedans for pursuit vehicles. South Carolina turned them down because they were not American made. I heard they relented later and took the cars once production began in Smyrna. Do any of you guys know if they did end up taking them or not?

 

Vancouver PD had an Evo and a WRX to catch street racers.

 

They used to have a Subaru over here in Kitsap but I think it was a Sheriff not WSP. I've also seen a couple full size trucks and SUV's lately. Years ago there used to be a Mustang and Trans Am that would hang out around 320th or so on I-5.

 

I'll start to worry when I see this in my rear view mirror! ;-)
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Redmond used to have a yellow pinto/pacer, really ugly looking thing, that would get people on Union Hill Rd. It just looked like a broken down car on the side of the road.

 

Kerry is onto something here.

Apologize in advance for going too geeky or simplified but a typical receiver/radar detector is a transmitter of low power on the same frequency. It "receives" the target transmitter's signals by detecting/demodulating the interference in its local field.

 

I had something simular happen the other day during a group drive.

I was leading the group in a new Audi Rs5 with all the bells and whistles ( no pun intended )

The cars behind me kept slowing down and not keeping pace. When we reached our destination, everyone was telling me that their radar detectors were going off. ( V1's, etc )
But no one could ever find the " police officer "

On the way home , we realized what "it" was:

The new Rs5 has " blind spot " sensors and active cruise control. Both systems us a low power radar signal... which set off the radar detectors....

Maybe the same situation, maybe not.

Just a thought,

S

 

Oh, and as for unmarked law enforcement vehicles, they don't have to have exempt plates.

Sometimes, the local DEA group will even go as far as to register their cars under names like " Daffy Duck " + " Peter Pan " or other movie names.

True Story..

LOL

S

 

Yeah you are probably right. The more I think about it, the more skeptical I get of my "UFO" spotting