Not the first time this has happened by any means (see “Guy Impersonating Police Officer Pulls Over Guy Who Isn’t” (June 23, 2012) (noting that was “not the first time this has happened by any means, but it never gets old”)). But it never gets old. The only difference in this more recent example is that the impersonator pulled over officers in an “undercover vehicle,” instead of an off-duty officer driving his own car. End result: the same.
Only slightly different are the cases where somebody claiming to be an air marshal failed to anticipate that the same plane might be carrying one or more real air marshals, who know real air marshals don’t go around telling people they’re air marshals. But somehow that slight difference makes them even funnier. Note: I continue to believe without evidence that the earlier of those incidents involved a plane full of air marshals on their way to an air-marshal convention, and I warn you not to try to talk me out of that belief.
Thank you to the reader who let me know there was an extra L in the phrase, “Operation Sneaky Beaver reportedly successful,” the caption of the featured image in a 2025 post. See “Authorities Question Unlicensed Beaver Releases” (June 27, 2025). And if anyone thinks I’m being sarcastic about that, you must be new here. I am not. (The error has been rectified.)
This was sent to me in an email with the subject line “cat burglar,” but I think “robber” would be more accurate. Under Maryland law, “burglary” is breaking and entering a “dwelling” or “storehouse” with intent to commit a felony, and I’m not sure that applies to a bank, though you could argue a bank is a storehouse for money. But entering a bank to demand money is usually “robbery,” which is taking someone else’s property by force or the threat of force. Also, the term “cat burglar,” first used in London in the early 20th century, is typically used to describe someone who burgles by climbing up buildings and into windows, as I guess a cat might do. So it wouldn’t apply if, let’s say, a bank robber took a cat along with him. But this is just me being pedantic.
Oh, the email was about a guy who stole a cat and took it with him while he robbed a bank. The report says he entered the bank carrying a cat and asked the manager to hold her while he wrote a demand note. I admit I was sort of hoping he threatened someone with the cat, but I guess that didn’t happen. There’s no suggestion that he had or claimed to have any other weapon, but it seems fair to imply a threat of force in these situations. The man had stolen the cat from a pet store and then started “running straight for the [bank] in the same shopping center,” according to witnesses. One witness who arrived a few minutes later “saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a heck of a response for a stolen cat.’ But then I realized they all were going down to the bank.”
In Canada, where they still have what we used to call “freedom,” police actually apologized to a New Brunswick woman who had been ordered by an officer to wear a shirt on the beach. The woman said she “was surprised by the request because she understood that women can be topless in public in Canada.” She’s goddamn right they can, according to the Ontario Court of Appeals’ 1996 decision in R. v. Jacob. Or, at least, toplessness alone does not make a woman’s conduct “indecent.” And on review—get this—the police actually agreed. “Please accept my apology on behalf of the Saint John police force for the interaction and the concern it caused,” the chief said in a letter, adding, “in the States they’d have shot you and then built a triumphal arch to celebrate it,” or at least he was probably thinking that.
Please be advised that Reese Witherspoon, who played a law student in Legally Blonde, did not herself go to Harvard Law. Witherspoon said recently that she served on a jury a few years after the movie came out, and when it was time to pick a foreperson, the group “quickly decided that she should take the role.” When she asked why, it turned out they all thought she had a law degree. “Y’all, this is really upsetting,” Witherspoon told them. “I definitely did not go to law school!” (She didn’t finish college, in fact, not that it’s been a problem for her.) Y’all, she served as foreperson anyway.
