> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mendolocal.news/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# In Willits, Police Cars That Blend in Raise Questions About California Law
- URL: https://www.mendolocal.news/in-willits-police-cars-that-blend-in-raise-questions-about-california-law/
- Published: 2026-08-26T17:48:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T17:48:50.000Z
- Description: A town hall on the low-contrast Willits' police cars will be held at the Little Lake Grange on Thursday, August 27, at 7 .p.m.
- Author: Elise Cox

Bill Durham, chaplain of the Little Lake Grange in Willits, started noticing the small city's low-contrast police cars a few years ago. "I started seeing police cars that looked like regular SUVs and it bothered me," he said.

Durham checked in with members of the Little Lake Grange, the local chapter of the National Grange, an agricultural advocacy group founded in 1867\. "Grangers all had stories about seeing the police come out of nowhere," he said.

He looked up the law and learned that California requires motor vehicles used by police and traffic officers to meet a mandated color scheme when they are used for the "exclusive or main purpose" of enforcing the Vehicle Code — the provisions governing traffic accidents, the rules of the road, and offenses such as speeding.

The requirement appears in more than one place. It is set out in Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations and in Section 40800 of the California Vehicle Code, which provides that a traffic officer on that duty "shall wear a full distinctive uniform, and if the officer while on duty uses a motor vehicle, it shall be a distinctive color specified by the commissioner" of the California Highway Patrol.

The members of the Grange voted on a resolution urging the Willits City Council to correct paint jobs they considered out of compliance. Nothing happened. The matter was not even added to the regular city council for discussion.

Rob Smith, the Grange's current president, and Liam UiCearbhaill, a past president, brought the question to the Willits City Council again during public comment on Aug. 12, and invited the council to a town hall on the cars set for Aug. 27.

Smith told the council he was there "to inform the city council and the police chief and anyone else that would like to join us at the Grange that we are having a town hall meeting on … the different colors on the police vehicles." He said he had heard Mayor Tom Allman say the city was purchasing "a new vehicle with better distinct colors," and called that "very proactive" — but said the objection to the existing fleet stood. 

"The Grange still believes that the old cars are out of this code," he said. "We believe that they're not following this code with the color scheme that it is now." He set the town hall for Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Grange.

UiCearbhaill followed, telling the council he wanted to raise "the same issue." "Without a vehicle properly distinguished according to state law, it opens all traffic citations by those vehicles … to a challenge in law," he said.

The council took no action; the comments came during the portion of the meeting reserved for items not on the agenda, when the Brown Act bars the council from acting.

The Grange's theory — that citations from an improperly marked car can be thrown out — is rooted in real California law, but the cases that have applied it describe a narrower remedy than a blanket challenge to "all traffic citations."

The key provision is Vehicle Code Section 40804, which says an officer who makes a speed-enforcement arrest while not in a distinctive uniform, or while using a vehicle "not painted the distinctive color specified by the commissioner," is "incompetent as a witness" in that prosecution. 

In People v. Tuck (1977), a state Court of Appeal held that Section 40800 "neither prohibits an officer not in uniform and not in a marked vehicle from detaining and arresting a driver for a speed violation nor makes his actions unlawful" — the stop is valid; the consequence falls on the officer's testimony. More than three decades later, in Dyer v. DMV (2008), the Court of Appeal restated the rule, holding that the statute "does not prohibit an officer in an unmarked patrol car from detaining a vehicle" for a suspected traffic offense, such as a DUI, "rather, it simply renders inadmissible the officer's testimony in a prosecution for a speed-related violation."

Those cases confine the marking rule to speed prosecutions. A separate line of cases governs a different statute — the ones that make it a crime to flee a pursuing officer — and turns on whether a car is "distinctively marked," a broader test than paint color. In People v. Hudson (2006), the California Supreme Court held that a vehicle is "distinctively marked" if its appearance shows "one or more features that are reasonably visible to other drivers" identifying it as law enforcement, and rejected the argument that an"“insignia or logo" was required.

"We conclude that a peace officer's vehicle is distinctively marked if its outward appearance during the pursuit exhibits, in addition to a red light and a siren, one or more features that are reasonably visible to other drivers and distinguish it from vehicles not used for law enforcement so as to give reasonable notice to the person being pursued that the pursuit is by the police," stated the decision, authored by Justice Joyce Kennard.

*MendoLocal.News* submitted written questions on Aug. 24 to three officials. Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster was asked whether a vehicle-marking defect had affected, or could affect, the admissibility of an officer's testimony in a Willits case. Mayor Tom Allman, the former Mendocino County sheriff, and Council Member Gerardo Gonzalez — a former City of Willits police chief — were asked for comment on the Grange's concerns and the city's plans for the fleet. None had responded as of Aug. 26.

The town hall is scheduled for Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Little Lake Grange.