Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-24-1999 ArticlesIowa City Press-Citizen Chief: It's tmlikely plain-clothes cop would stop traffic By Grace Shim The Press-Citizen Iowa City Police Chief RJ. Winkelhake told the Police Citizens Iowa City R e v i e w Board that it is not very likely that any plain- clothes police officer in an unmarked car would make a traffic stop. The board raised the ques- tion in light of a recent incident in which a man posing as a plain-clothes police officer stopped a woman in her car and then assaulted her. V~,qnkelhake said it is stan- dard practice for a non-uni- formed officer in an unmarked car to contact a clearly marked police car to make any traffic stops. Plain-clothed officers, he said, are invesfgators who nor- mally don't make traffic stops. "[ don't see why we'd use unmarked cars for routine traffic stops;' he said to the five-mem- ber board. There are instances, howev- er, in which members of the Special Crimes Action Team will wear T-shirts or tuv'lenecks embroidered with the SCAT logo instead of standard-issue uniforms. Thc SCAT members work in neighborhoods to com- bat gang activity, fighting and disorderly conduct. Patricia Farrant, a Police Citizens Review Board member, said she wanted to know what she could do as a citizen if she were stopped by a police officer who is not clearly identified. "If 1 was stopped tonight in a remote area by an unmarked car and by an plain-clothed officer, I would not feel safe even crack- ing the window of my car;' she said. "What would happen if I kept driving to the police sta- tion?'' Winkelhake said citizens could open their car window just a bit to request to see the police officer's identification and badge. He said citizens might ask to go to lighted areas or to a police station. But to create a universal pol- icy allowing citizens to drive to the police station would be dif- ficult because different cities might have different policies, he said. Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux City, Ames, Cedar Falls, West Des Moines and Dubuque allow officers in unmarked vehicles ~o make traffic stops.