Sometimes police officers wear some pretty outrageous get ups. Some of them wear SWAT style outfits, camouflage, blacked out ninja outfits, etc. But there are no statutory or regulatory requirements regarding what a police officer’s uniform must look like, with the exception of Ohio Administrative Code 4501:2-5 which outlines the uniform requirements for Ohio Highway Patrol Troopers. Everybody else can wear what ever they want so long at it is distinctively a police uniform.
The Eleventh District Court of Appeals held that a canine officer from a local police agency wearing (without a hat) black pants, black boots, a black polo shirt with a large silk-screened insignia on the back stating “Warren Police Canine” and two smaller silk-screened insignias on the front, one again stating “Warren Police Canine” and the other being a design that looked like a police badge was wearing a sufficiently distinct police uniform to testify under the statute.[1]
In the case of State v. Thobe,[2] the Chief of Police was wearing a uniform consisting of green pants, a green shirt, a police hat, a badge, and an exposed belt with gun and holster. The Second District Court of Appeals ruled that this uniform was not distinct enough, and that the failure of the police department to designate a uniform did not automatically exempt it from the requirement of the law. However, the officer was found competent to testify on different grounds, in that the officer testified that he was not on duty for the primary purpose of enforcing traffic laws.
If you need representation against drunk driving charges, you can call me at 614.580.4316. I don’t charge for initial consultations to see if I can help you. If you decide you want to hire me after we speak, then we can go from there on what it will cost.
