Picture merging onto Interstate 40 outside Albuquerque and catching lights in your mirror, blue up front, red in back, the universal signal that somebody official wants you pulled over. That’s what happened to an off-duty New Mexico State Police captain on November 4, 2023, except the person flashing those lights wasn’t a cop. He was a security guard named Ronald Portillo, and the traffic stop he tried to run on a real police captain turned into one of the more instructive bodycam videos to come out of New Mexico in years, not because of how badly it went for Portillo, but because of how many laws he had already broken before anyone asked for his ID.
The captain’s own account, given to the responding troopers and captured on their bodycam, described a vehicle behind him running blue lights up front and red lights in back while trailing him down I-40. He started easing toward the shoulder, assuming the unfamiliar truck belonged to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office. The instant he moved to pull over, the lights shut off and the truck kept driving, an odd bit of behavior that mattered a lot once real state police got involved, since a legitimate stop doesn’t get aborted the moment a driver actually responds. The captain radioed it in, and units caught up with Portillo after he had continued on to a property he said he had been hired to patrol.
Portillo didn’t make the encounter easy once troopers arrived. He argued that the captain hadn’t shown a badge before flashing his own lights, declared “I’m in charge of this right now” because the conversation had drifted onto private property, and refused to hand over his driver’s license. State police explained that withholding ID during a lawful stop would get him arrested immediately. He resisted anyway, and once he was in cuffs, he pivoted to critiquing the officers’ arrest technique, a move that has never once talked anybody out of handcuffs.
Here’s the detail that gets lost under all the drama: Portillo’s truck was breaking New Mexico law the moment he flipped that light switch, regardless of anything he said afterward. Under NMSA 66-3-835, flashing lights of any color are flatly prohibited on New Mexico vehicles outside a short list of exemptions covering authorized emergency vehicles, school buses, snow-removal equipment, and highway-marking rigs. Forward-facing red is locked down even tighter, reserved exclusively for fire department vehicles, law enforcement, ambulances, and school buses. A privately owned truck wired up to look like a cruiser isn’t just risking an impersonation charge, it’s an equipment violation all by itself, the kind of citation that can follow a security company’s fleet vehicle even before a guard ever says a word to anybody.
Portillo told officers he was a PPO, or Private Patrol Operator, working for a private security company. That’s a real license category, issued by New Mexico’s Regulation and Licensing Department through its Private Investigations Advisory Board to firms that patrol commercial property. That license lets a company post guards on private lots and buildings; it grants exactly zero authority on a public interstate, and it never comes with the ability to signal other drivers to stop. Worth remembering next time a security truck with amber or red-and-blue lighting looks a little too official in a parking lot: whatever authority it has ends at the curb.
State police ultimately cited Portillo for impersonating a peace officer under NMSA 30-27-2.1, a statute that covers two distinct scenarios: exercising the functions of a peace officer without authority, or simply pretending to be one with intent to deceive. Either is enough on its own for a conviction. A first offense is a misdemeanor, which under New Mexico’s general sentencing statute can carry up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. A second conviction for the same offense automatically escalates to a fourth-degree felony, which tells you exactly how much patience the legislature has for repeat offenders.
The case picked up an odd wrinkle after that first citation. It was dismissed without prejudice, legal shorthand for thrown out but not permanently closed, because the officer who wrote it up never signed the paperwork. That’s a paperwork failure, not a verdict on the strength of the evidence, which is exactly why dismissal without prejudice exists as its own category separate from a dismissal with prejudice that would have ended the case outright. State police went back through the bodycam footage, decided the probable cause still held up, and refiled the same impersonating-an-officer charge against Portillo the following month.
The more useful takeaway for regular drivers isn’t Portillo’s legal trouble, it’s what to do if you ever end up in the captain’s position. Nobody is required to immediately pull onto the shoulder for a vehicle they can’t positively identify as law enforcement, especially at night or on an interstate. Slowing down, activating hazard lights, and continuing to a well-lit, populated area, a gas station, a police substation, anywhere with cameras and other people around, while calling 911 to confirm whether an actual marked unit is trying to reach you, is a reasonable and legal response during a routine traffic stop that feels off. It’s the same advice state police agencies across the country give for exactly this scenario, and legitimate officers understand it.
Portillo’s stop is a good reminder that a light bar and a tactical vest can fool people for a few seconds on a highway, but they can’t fool statutes that were written decades before he ever wired up that truck. New Mexico courts still haven’t resolved the refiled charge, and the outcome will hinge on the same bodycam footage that already told the story once. It’s a tamer outcome than what tends to happen when highway antics catch the attention of actual law enforcement, like the pack of supercars that got a very unwelcome welcome from Colorado deputies, or the Arkansas driver who found out the hard way that outrunning a trooper rarely ends well. This time, the person who thought he had the authority to make the stop is the one who ended up explaining himself in handcuffs.
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