When a South Carolina state trooper pulled over a small town mayor for speeding, that mayor gave the cop a taste of his own medicine.
Norway Mayor Jim Preacher is being probed by the state after he was pulled over for speeding by a state trooper on Jan. 18 — and then pulled rank by pulling over the same trooper just minutes later, according to The Times and Democrat.
Preacher doesn’t deny that he was cruising at 70 mph in a 55 mph zone at about 7 p.m., but now a South Carolina law enforcement agency is trying to figure out whether the mayor had any authority to then pull over the very same officer and try to issue him a summons — a request that the trooper refused.
After a bit of hesitation, and a look at the trooper’s license and registration, Preacher let him go.
Mayors don’t often fire up their red and blues to pull over a state trooper, but Preacher said he was acting within his rights as Norway’s chief constable. Plus, the mercenary mayor said that he was trying to pull over a vehicle he believed to have been involved in a recent robbery attempt, not a cop, according to CBS News.
It’s yet unclear whether the mayor routinely makes traffic stops — or tries to single-handedly take down burglary suspects — but the « chief constable » is sticking to his guns on this one.
« Nobody knows that Norway has a [chief constable], » which is why the confusion arose with the state trooper, Preacher told the South Carolina paper.
He told the paper that he might have « some makeup work to do » in terms of completely certifying himself to be a constable, but that the state had previously given him a « clear status » to act as law enforcement.
The now-famous mayor of Norway — a small town with a population of just over 360 — was in the local headlines earlier this year when cops allege that he broke into his own town hall through a window because he lost his keys, according to The Post and Courier.
The chubby Preacher said he didn’t climb in himself, but employed the help of a smaller man to get inside and unlock the door. The paper also reports that a former mayor called for burglary charges to be brought against Preacher.
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