‘Fake cop’ dancing at party was not impersonating an officer – CCU head

March 09, 2022
Lindsay

Head of the police’s Corporate Communications Unit, Senior Superintendent Stephanie Lindsay, says that the actions of a man in the viral video wearing a police costume did not amount to the impersonation of an officer.

In the video, the ‘policeman’ is seen gleefully gyrating on women with what appears to be a prop gun in his left hand. 

Lindsay said that the comedian was spoken to by the St Thomas police in relation to a similar gesture and will be given a second talk.

“He likes to do gimmicks representing the JCF [Jamaica Constabulary Force] lookalikes. He did not break any law because based on what we saw, he was not out there claiming to be a police officer carrying out policing activities. Judging from the response of the crowd it would appear that he does these gimmicks from time to time. Something similar had happened before and he was spoken to by the local police. In this particular instance, they are going to seek to have further dialogue with him. If a person wants to use anything resembling close to that of the police [uniform] including imitation firearm and so on, then they are supposed to apply for permission,” she said.

In the video, patrons could be heard cheering on the ‘squaddie’ as he dance. In one clip, his dancing moves appear to have delighted patrons, including men who ignited spray cans.

“What we see was a video with somebody wearing a costume quite similar and could be easily mistaken for a police officer. A lot of persons had sent it to us because they thought it was a police officer but when we look at the behaviour, we checked further to inspect the uniform and we recognised that it was not a police officer. In a case like that, it did not reach to the threshold of impersonating an officer because apart from dancing, he wasn’t out there saying to somebody that he was a police officer,” Lindsay said.

Other News Stories