The Extremely F*#!ing Chaotic Saga of the World’s Most Notorious Police Impersonator

A Florida funeral escort who took his road-safety duties a little too seriously became a widely ridiculed Internet sensation—and landed in hot water with actual law enforcement.

Edited by Brendan Spiegel | Header by Yunuen Bonaparte

A note from the author and editors: The following story is at times extremely outrageous and darkly funny, but we also want to take a moment to acknowledge that we’re publishing this piece in the midst of our country’s ongoing and devastating crisis of police violence, particularly against Black Americans. This article is not directly related to recent examples of that violence, but the rage-fueled encounters detailed within it do reflect how quickly authority — real or imagined — can go to one’s head. We've decided to share the story with you so that it may serve as a lens into power and (dubious) accountability, at a time when the privilege of control and dominance can have such dire and deadly consequences.

The driver of a Porsche in Central Florida was minding his own business one day in June 2018 when he approached what appeared to be the tail end of a funeral procession. He wove around a white patrol motorcycle and then eased to a stop in a line of traffic. Moments later, the motorcycle wound through two lanes of vehicles and pulled up next to him. The driver, a stocky and strong-looking guy in his late 30s, was wearing a uniform shirt with a badge and a duty belt with a baton, handcuffs and radio. Lettering on his motorcycle indicated he was with an agency called Metro State. 

“You must’ve missed that it’s 45 through there and you used the turning lane to cut through traffic,” the officer said, leaning over to the Porsche’s driver side window. 

The driver scrutinized him and his motorcycle.  “Are you a cop?” he asked. 

“Don’t worry about what I am ’cause I’m a state agent. So, what you need to do is make sure you’re doing the right thing, fuck boy!” 

The driver rolled his eyes and drove away but saw in his rearview mirror that the man on the bike began pursuit. He followed the Porsche at high speed for several miles under bridges, past shopping centers and through multiple neighborhoods. 

“Come on, bitch! Get out of your fucking car!” he yelled when he caught up with the driver at a traffic light. “Let’s go! Let’s go! Come on! Fuck boy! I’m calling you out, bitch!”  They exchanged a few more threats but the driver never got out of his car, and ultimately sped off, pissed — and completely baffled — by the encounter. It turned out he was not alone in his confusion.  

Similar interactions with Metro State officers were taking place all over Central Florida, especially with the man on the bike, Metro State’s founder and “Motor One,” Jeremy Dewitte. Given the agent’s outfit and the imperious nature of his commands, drivers were consistently surprised to learn Metro State was not any kind of law enforcement agency, but rather a civilian business that escorts funeral processions. 

While funeral processions are generally somber affairs, their long and slow-moving nature sometimes leads to traffic accidents. A funeral escort’s job is to make sure mourners arrive safely at the cemetery, typically by heading up the front and rear of the procession and sometimes driving ahead to let other drivers know that a procession is coming through. Metro State agents took their duty extremely seriously, to say the least — the company’s cars and motorcycles were known to descend like shrieking banshees down roads and into intersections, where they’d direct traffic and pull people over, generally with lights and sirens ablaze and agents unafraid to assert their authority to drivers who ignored their directions. 

Metro State employees posing next to their motorcycles. ​(All images: Orange County Sheriff's Office, via Fraudie International Operations.)

“Sit tight, sir!” Dewitte said in a separate incident where the driver of a silver truck refused to heed his directions. “Hey, FUCK BOY! Hey, piece of SHIT FUCK BOY! MOTHERFUCKING FUCK BOY!” 

Scenes like this didn’t just antagonize the baffled drivers and seriously challenge the dead’s ability to rest in peace (even if they did arrive at the cemetery safely). They also made Metro State well-known to Central Florida’s sanctioned law enforcement agencies. Dewitte had already served time for impersonating law enforcement years earlier, and in the fall of 2019, following three serious interactions between the company and police in just over a month, authorities decided it was time to act.   Using Metro State’s insistence on verisimilitude against them, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office got a warrant for the footage from bodycams worn by Dewitte and the rest of the company’s agents and obtained almost a terabyte of footage that captured the above incidents and many more like it. It turned out investigators were only beginning to untangle the wild saga of Jeremy Dewitte and Metro State, surely the most enthusiastic funeral escort business in the world.