Crooks rape, rob, assault -- all while pretending to be cops

NEW YORK -- ASSOCIATED PRESS

A man forces his way into an apartment to rape the woman who lives there. A guy on a bicycle handcuffs and robs pedestrians, and another gropes random women on the side of the road.

In each case, men pretending to be police preyed on victims who let down their guard because they thought they were being stopped by real officers.

Officer impersonation has flourished in recent years with brazen criminals sometimes going to great lengths to pull off their ruse.

"You wave a badge at someone and tell them to pull over, and you'd be amazed at how many people are going to obey," said Dr. Naftali Berrill, a psychologist who runs the New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic Behavioral Science. "They disarm their victims by appearing to be cops."

The crime is about more than a costume; it's about attitude.

"It takes nerves of steel to pull this off. The average person couldn't do it," Berrill said.

After a city and federal investigation, two men were arrested earlier this month on charges of running a phony bounty hunting school where so-called graduates used school-issued credentials to impersonate officers and get out of traffic tickets. A Long Island man was sentenced last month for running a virtual one-man police department, complete with a car with sirens and a fake police station where he handcuffed his victims to a chair.

There are no readily available statistics on police impersonations, but it is enough to prompt some action.

New York City police arrest about 100 suspects a year on charges of impersonating an officer.

Fake officers have benefited from the Internet and advances in technology that allow them to buy and replicate real badges and uniforms.