Man Arrested for Impersonating Police Officer in Oklahoma City Police Car

News9.com

CLAREMORE, Oklahoma -- The Rogers County Sheriff's Office has arrested a Tulsa man for impersonating a police officer.

The sheriff's office says Deputy Brandon Hill was driving his personal vehicle on U.S. Highway 412 on March 25 when he passed a car that appeared to be a police car. After the deputy passed the vehicle, a red and blue light bar turned on.

"I knew something was wrong with this," said Rogers County Sheriff's Deputy Brandon Hill.

Hill got behind the vehicle and observed that the car did not have government tags nor did it have markings on the vehicle which identified it as a law enforcement vehicle.

"It was convincing enough," said Hill. "I was taken in by it and I'm familiar with police vehicles. If a deputy sheriff can be convinced that it's a police car I can only imagine what someone with no familiarity with police vehicles would be thinking if this car were behind them."

The sheriff's office says Hill and an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper investigated who owned the car through the car tag number and learned 40-year-old Daniel Harmon had purchased the old Oklahoma City Police car at auction. Several days later officers went to Harmon's home in Tulsa and interviewed him.

Harmon told the deputy and trooper he worked for Harmon Security and he thought the lights were his turn signal.

On March 28, Tulsa Police say they received a report of a similar vehicle driving on U.S. 169 using the red and blue lights.

On Tuesday Harmon was arrested and his car and light bar were confiscated. Harmon was booked into the Rogers County jail on a complaint of false impersonation of a public officer.

Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton said this type of impersonation can be very dangerous.

"Citizens are vulnerable when red and blue lights appear in their rear view mirrors. When the person operating those cars and lights aren't real police officers there's a potential for a lot of danger and we're going to work hard to investigate and apprehend anyone who impersonates police officers," Sheriff Scott Walton said.

Harmon is free on $10,000 bond.