"Follow the commands of a police officer or risk dying," snarled Major Travis Yates of the Tulsa Police Department in a recent essay for Law Officer. Requiring police officers to respect the rights of the citizens they detain, or to practice de-escalation when citizens assert their rights, would be tantamount to asking that "police stop being police" – that is, commissioned ministers of violence acting on behalf of the divine State. Whenever a police officer inflicts himself on a citizen, every consideration is made for officer safety, despite the fact that the citizen is the one facing an immediate, known risk of lethal violence. A Mundane who acts upon specific police instruction to take minimal precautions for his own safety runs the additional risk of a ruinous and unjustified arrest – or a life-threatening assault by one of his privileged overseers in a state-issued costume.

Idaho Falls resident Daniel McIsaac was stopped for speeding shortly after midnight on April 16 on an isolated stretch of Highway 26, near milepost 177 and Marley Road. This is a section of south-central Idaho where several recent confrontations have occurred between motorists and police impersonators.