Police: Man posed as cop
May 3 , 2007
Adapted from the Press Enterprise
A man who is a part-time policeman pretended to be an officer so he could pull over a woman and give her his phone number, authorities allege.
But the 30-year-old man says he stopped the woman because she was speeding and he feared for others' safety.
The man, who is a part-time patrolman, claims he had no idea if the driver was male or female when he pulled the woman’s car over and was merely trying to avert an accident.
"In my opinion, she was going to kill somebody," he said. "The whole thing was to prevent somebody from getting killed."
The man is charged with impersonating a public servant because he was out of his jurisdiction when he stopped her.
According to a police report, the woman told officers that the man was driving a pickup truck with red and blue lights on the dash, and that she was not surprised to have been pulled over because one of her taillights was out.
But he says he pulled her over after he noticed her leaving a bar at a high rate of speed, and watched her blow through a stop sign.
"My whole concern was somebody wasn't going home that night," he said. "There was going to be a fatal accident. Somebody was going to get killed with the way she was driving."
The woman attempted to give him her license and registration, but began to feel something was wrong when she noticed indications that he was drunk, charges say.
She told officers that he said he did not need her license or registration, and told her he had seen her at the bar earlier.
She said he then handed her a police ID card with his cell phone number on it, asked if she was in a relationship, and told her "to give him a call sometime," arrest papers say.
The man said he declined to see the woman’s license and registration because he just wanted to tell her to slow down. He admitted to giving her his cell phone number, but said it was simply because he uses the phone as his primary business contact.
"I said, 'If you want to do something sometime, give me a call,'" he explained.
After the incident, police say the woman approached an officer who was conducting a traffic stop and told him what had happened.
Police then went to the man’s home. |
