i dunno if it's still there, but one of the communities i used to follow on was called "whackers", which is/was a slang term for that type of guy who kits himself and his vehicle out to looking like a police vehicle, right up to and often over the line of what is legal. people would take pictures of them out in the world. some even had companies with names like this and they would do shit like "funeral escorts" and "private security".
they invariably have run ins with the law and with court appearances and other things on public record. the community would post videos and pictures and news stories about their altercations.
the top tier poster child of this phenomenon was a guy named Jeremy Dewitte in the Orlando, FL area who had a company called "Metro State Services". the news stories and youtube videos (of police body cams) are all over the place. i used to follow it, but i think he finally got locked up for it. he has never been a cop and was ineligible to be a cop since very early on due to being a registered sex offender. i don't know where he gets all the money for the fines, his gear, vehicles, and their customization, but his collection of modified fleet vehicles is literally insane.
anyway, as much as i hate cops... these wannabees, not just private security, but private security trying to look like sworn officers, are often the guys who were the massive rejects that even our bullshit and corrupt systems identified as too chaotically evil.
link to like the first hit for his name... where you can find him in the comments of the article arguing about how he's actually not a criminal: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/03/24/florida-man-notorious-for-impersonating-cops-arrested-again/
You have to be on a whole another level of danger to the public (or to the PR of the police more likely) to not get to be a cop in US
The fact that you can hire guards and have them openly hold rifles is insane
my local grocery store started putting armed moonlighting cops at the exit to check receipts. There's 8 checkout lines but only 1 of them is ever open with a real employee, the rest is self checkout only
Are the customers starting to group up and leave in clusters so the cop can't stop them?
"Protect" them from what exactly?
Roaming gangs of militant anti-cheesesteak thugs?
The video doesn’t mention any real threat to the store lol. They mentioned a nearby gas station that has been a target of armed thieves, and one of the customers even said he supported having guards with rifles at that gas station, but the area that the cheese steak restaurant is in doesn’t have any notable crime. It’s just expensive virtue signaling
I've heard that the "philly cheesesteak" is a very jealously guarded national treasure. Personally I don't understand the fuss, surely it is just cheese on steak, on a roll. Sounds nice, but hardly worth this level of protection.
They actually get mad at you if you put cheese on top of it instead of orange plastic from a squirt tube.
This local place here in MA does a philly cheesesteak eggroll thats to die for... it uses real cheese. Cope and seethe Philistines.
When I lived in Syracuse right next to the apartment was a combined storefront that was a dope cheesesteak place on one side (that did provolone as the standard cheese which was dope) and a fish fry place with a line out the door on the other side.
They deffi it'll can be good as long as you dont intentionally ruin them by putting the equivalent of a kraft single still in the wrapper on it.
They've posted a pig outside my office during work hours now because all the must've been freaking out because they had to see homeless people existing
Fuck those philly cheesesteak garbage. They put fucking cheezwhiz on that shit its so gross. I asked for white cheese and they gave me a face and it was a terrible sandwich.
What's up with people getting defensive over people eating their local food in a not shitty way.
People in Philly getting upset if you want a cheese that doesn't taste like plastic on your sandwich.
Chicago getting offended if you put ketchup on the food that LITERALLY wrote the book on unhygienic food manufacturing.
New Yorkers giving you the side eye if you want to taste the bagel instead of just chew in mouthfuls of cream cheese.
And theres often lines going around the block during lunch time. Theres a place in my city that is like that for terrible dry corned beef sandwiches that everyone loses their shit over. Its just a pile of shit corned beef between two tiny untoasted pieces of rye. One of my favorite things to do is steer people away from going there especially if they're from out of town.
Its like some super shitty regional nationalistic pride that your favorite sandwich is your identity and both are absolute shit.
The east coast, chicagoans, and Californians would invade each other if they could
Decent places will have non-whiz options available and won't give you shit for selecting one. Stay away from Pat's and Geno's.
The place I went had a white cheese option which I got and it was super dry and the cheese they used had no flavor.
So you did get a proper Philly cheesesteak then. The amount of hype this mediocre sandwich gets is concerning. The can now tell the difference between two heavily processed sandwiches but can't even understand the difference between gender and sex.
Grew up outside of Philly, never even knew there was a version with cheezwhiz until I went to college in Arizona where a bunch of people from the west coast told me that I didn't know what I was talking about and that it's not a Philly cheesesteak if it doesn't have cheezwhiz on it.