This Fake Cop Finally Got Arrested - The Michael Scaletta-Teates Story
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What lengths did Michael Scaletta-Teates go to impersonate a police officer?
Imagine if you got pulled over and it turns out the cop is not a real cop at all. Just a random guy cosplaying as one. So this story starts with this guy, Michael. And Michael is 49 years old and he's living in Washington state. And apparently Michael really, really wants to be a police officer. So much so that he's willing to lie about it. Now, here's the thing, though. He can't actually become a police officer because he's actually a convicted felon for some, you know, past crimes he committed.
What events led to Michael's decision to cosplay as a cop?
But one day in 2025, that all changes because he gets a job at a security company as a security guard. And he's supposed to work around the local Salvation Army, which is probably a good, steady gig for him. But, you know, he's just a security guard, not a cop. Now at some point, for whatever reason, he decides he's gonna cosplay as a police officer. Like, a real police officer. And he gets a fake police badge that looks real, he gets body armor, a tactical vest, he gets SWAT patches sewn onto his clothes, and he also gets an unmarked Ford Explorer with flashing police-looking lights installed and a siren. And so then, he just starts cosplaying as a cop. Not just while he's working his security guard job at the Salvation Army, but he'll like apparently listen on his police scanner for crimes being reported in the area, and then he'll just like show up to the crime scene and act like he's from a neighboring police department, and he'll try to assist the real officers as backup.
Like one night, a 7-Eleven employee calls police to come and trespass someone. And I guess Michael hears about this on his police scanner and he just like shows up, pretending he's gonna help mediate the situation. And you can see him there on the other officer's body cam. And when he shows up to these places, no one questions it. Like, I don't know, he looks like a cop, he talks like a cop. Sometimes there are other cops there on the scene and they don't second guess him. And this goes on for months. And I guess people in the area really believe that he's an officer that's in the neighborhood just, you know, keeping it safe and checking things out. But then, finally... It all starts to go wrong because one night local police are out responding to a small fire that was reported in a parking garage.
And I guess Michael hears about this report on his police scanner or whatever, but he finds out about it and he decides that he's going to go play cop and check it out. So he drives over to the scene of the incident and he pulls up in his unmarked vehicle and his fake police lights are turned on and everything. And he gets out of his car and there are other real police officers there. And before any of them say anything, he tells them that he's with Edmunds. Edmunds is a different police department than what these guys are with. And Michael, he's in his full police uniform with his tactical gear and his pistol in his holster. So he looks legit enough to these guys, I guess. But then some of the officers kind of start feeling a bit skeptical about Michael.
I guess by the way he's carrying himself and the way he's responding to things is just not typical of a real officer. So one of these cops at the scene tells him, you know, thank you, but we don't really need your help. So Michael gets back in his fake cop car and he starts to drive back to the Salvation Army because I guess he's supposed to be at work. But that officer back at the scene is still skeptical about who this random cop was that showed up from another jurisdiction. So he gets in his car and he decides to follow Michael to see where he's going. And he follows him all the way back to the Salvation Army, and he sees that he appears to work security there. So from this body cam footage, it looks like the officer starts chatting with him at one point.
How long have you been a detective with Edmonds? About two years. Two years?
Yeah.
And after a quick chat, the officer leaves, still feeling a bit skeptical. So then, this officer has a discussion with some of the other officers, and they talk about their interaction with the guy, and they review some of their body cam footage, and they start thinking, yeah, something's definitely off about this cop.
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