What is the test for a police officer to be wearing a distinctive uniform?

agency which serves to identify or distinguish members of its force.' [Citation.] 'The statute does not require that the uniform be of any particular level of formality or that it be complete.' [Citation.] Nor does the statute require that the person eluding capture actually see that the police officer is wearing a distinctive uniform." (People v. Byrd (2016) 1 Cal.App.5th 1219, 1223.)

In People v. Byrd, supra, 1 Cal.App.5th 1219, the testimony at trial included that the defendant was being chased by officers in a patrol unit and they were in a distinctively marked police vehicle. However, there was no evidence that the officers were wearing a distinctive uniform. (Id. at p. 1224.) The court rejected that the People could rely on the officers being on patrol in a marked car "as a substitute for proof satisfying the distinctive uniform requirement." (Ibid.) It concluded, "[B]ecause the prosecutor neglected to ask a single, simple question to elicit evidence of the officers' attire and there is no evidence otherwise in the record that the officers were wearing distinctive uniforms, defendant's conviction cannot stand." (Id. at p. 1225.)