On Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported the saga of Ryan Flanzer, a man from Florida who fancied himself to be a police officer — and how, despite terrorizing several people, he ended up avoiding prison.
Flanzer, 27, harbored a years-long "obsession" with police, donated over $200,000 to police departments, implied on social media that he worked for a Florida police department, and listed himself on LinkedIn as a "Crime Prevention consultant" for the Longboat Key Police Department. “i [sic] protect and serve me finance and interest #LongBoatKeyPolice , volunteer officer,” said one of his Instagram posts, which showed a Sig Sauer handgun and a concealed carry license in a case that resembled a police badge. In one of the more disturbing aspects of his police worship, he generated proceeds for police departments by selling hoodies online depicting the Columbine High School shooters.
But Flanzer was in no way a real police officer — and his attempts to pretend he was one ultimately proved to be his undoing.
Flanzer, distressed about being disinherited by his philanthropist grandparents and suffering from drug addiction and mental illness, began compiling a "hit list" of people he believed had financially wronged him, including "the trustee of Flanzer’s grandparents’ estate, the trustee’s lawyer, and Longboat Key Police Chief Peter Cumming, who had recently accepted Flanzer’s $200,000-plus donation."
He went to the home of one of the targets on his list, dressed in body armor, a fake badge, and a holstered pistol, and told bystanders he was a police officer. He then repeated the stunt at the condo of the owner of a boating company he was suing, opened fire on the door lock, then barricaded himself in a hotel — and ultimately surrendered after a standoff with SWAT officers.
Ultimately, Flanzer took a plea that allowed him to avoid jail time — because of the time he spent in a rehab facility in Malibu, California. The people on his "hit list" remain frightened and many have taken out security details, but his lawyer Stephen Romine insists he is not a threat to the community and is now at UCLA making "straight A's."
You can read more here.
