As police responded to a fire at a store parking garage in Edmonds, Washington, USA on 4 September, another cop pulled up to the scene in a Ford Explorer with flashing blue lights. 

Michael Scaletta-Teates, 49, of Olympia, got off the unmarked SUV and introduced himself to a Bremerton Police Department (BPD) officer as an off-duty detective from Edmonds PD working as a security guard for a nearby Salvation Army location “on the side,” Fox 8 and KOMO News report. 

The BPD cop, however, got suspicious and checked Scaletta-Teates’ driver’s license in the state database. There was no record of it, instead a conviction for a bomb threat in 2016 appeared.

A check with the Edmonds PD found no Scaletta-Teates on its payroll so the police arrested the impostor, confiscated his badge and uniform, booked him into jail, and charged him with “Criminal Impersonation 1st Degree, and Unlawful Possession of a Firearm 2nd Degree,” according to Bremerton Police.

Scaletta-Teates pleaded not guilty, and the judge set his bail at $50,000, according to KOMO News.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, the Seoul Jungbu Police Station reported a decrease in the local crime rate by approximately 22 percent after police visibility was enhanced from October 2024 to May 2025, BBC and The Chosun Daily (TCD) report. 

A special police officer appearing and issuing warnings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily deterred drunk violence and robberies, according to the public reaction to the cop described as 170 centimeters tall. 

However, Lawrence Sherman, a criminology professor at the University of Cambridge, pointed out the limitations of the officer appearing and disappearing every two minutes at a street corner in an area dotted with entertainment facilities plagued by night-time crime.  

“Holograms cannot arrest criminals,” Sherman said of the 3D hologram police guidance system installed at Jeodong 3 Park in Jung-gu, according to TCD.