Over the past several months I have seen several posts on our forum regarding the HSUS and their siezure tactics and possible impersonation of law enforcment agents. It finally hit me square in the face that I had seen some information in the Code Enforcment documents for my state pertaining to laws against impersonating an officer. Indiana has law enforcment codes on the books regarding imerpsonating law officers, badge wearing and other specifics of impersonation. Here is an excerpt from the Indiana Code IC 35-44-2 in reference to the matter of impersonation.

IC 35-44-2-3
Impersonation of a public servant
Sec. 3. A person who falsely represents that the person is a public servant, with intent to mislead and induce another person to submit to false official authority or otherwise to act to the other person's detriment in reliance on the false representation, commits impersonation of a public servant, a Class A misdemeanor. However, a person who falsely represents that the person is:
(1) a law enforcement officer; or
(2) an agent or employee of the department of state revenue, and collects any property from another person;
commits a Class D felony.
As added by Acts 1976, P.L.148, SEC.4. Amended by Acts 1977, P.L.340, SEC.57; P.L.6-1987, SEC.21; P.L.214-1997, SEC.1.

I thought I would share this with everybody here on the forum as a possible means at combating any attempts by persons from HSUS organizations to perform illegal siezures of animals from any of my friends in the reptile industry. Remember, the excerpt above is only for Indiana. I have not done a search for other states yet so there may be similar Code Enforcment that pertains to your state as well. Maybe this will help us gain some protection for our property and investmants. I plan on digging a little deeper into this issue in my state to see just how much enforcment this may provide if the HSUS and their so called agents come knocking on my door. I also plan on having a copy of this document in a folder at my door just in case. I hope this will help foster advances in our ability to fend off attempts by those groups that seek to destroy our hobby.

I used google and just searched under this reference "indiana impersonating an officer". That gave me several links right to the actual cose. The first time I saw it was during a marathon session reading thru Code Enforcment to see if there were already any local codes against reptile ownership and the Indiana proposed senate bill S280.


Chris

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