HOWTO Establish a Fake Police Force

The LA Times has the details on that story with the bloke from Tiger Telematics, the Ferrari of which there are only 399 in the world, the high-speed crash and the mysterious pseudo-police who arrived at the crash site. (Google "Stefan Eriksson" to catch up.)

Eriksson, 44, is a former executive with the video game machine company Gizmondo who left the firm shortly before a Swedish newspaper ran allegations that he had been convicted of counterfeiting a decade before in Sweden. Officials at the Swedish National Police confirmed Tuesday that he has a criminal record.

No one was injured when the rare Ferrari Enzo smashed into a power pole on Pacific Coast Highway at 162 mph. But the case continues to generate interest because the Ferrari is one of only 400 built, and detectives have struggled to understand what happened.

Eriksson told investigators he was a passenger in the Ferrari and that the driver was a man named Dietrich, who fled. But officials have been skeptical, noting that Eriksson had a bloody lip and the only blood found was on the driver's side air bag...

More interesting for our purposes is that the article gives step-by-step instructions on how to create your very own police gang, so long as you live in the United States. Fake policemen are becoming something of a TYR trope, so here goes.

First, obtain a bus. You can do this at any good vehicle dealership, or alternatively swap several motorcycles for it as the people in this case did.

Second, register yourself as a transit authority. You may need to provide a public transport service of some sort in order to fill out the forms, but this may not be necessary..

Deal said that his agency has discovered that several railroad agencies around California have created police departments — even though the companies have no rail lines in California to patrol. The police certification agency is seeking to decertify those agencies because it sees no reason for them to exist in California.

The issue of private transit firms creating police agencies has in recent years been a concern in Illinois, where several individuals with criminal histories created railroads as a means of forming a police agency.

Hell, why not set up a railway? It's like a big train set, with fake police!

That's it. As Amazon.com would put it...start a transit authority, and you're done. You can then issue police badges, uniforms, firearms, handcuffs, and such. Without more complexity, you won't be able to do more than make a citizen's arrest, but you can pack pistols and announce yourself as the police. As Mr. Eriksson's friends did, you can also create an undercover division–in this case, an Anti-Terrorist branch.

It really is that simple. On another point, does anyone else notice a distinct sense of Hunter S. Thompson about the whole story? Ferrari Enzo..blood-red...162 mph on the public highway..torn in half by lamp post...fugitive Swedish millionaire..mystery German..produced police badges at the scene of the crash. I feel his shade walks among us. Wasn't it a Policeman's Benevolent Association card he used to carry because it looked like a cop's badge?