Tulsa Man Jailed For Impersonating A Police Officer

NewsOn6.com

CLAREMORE, OK -- 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 passed a car driven by Daniel Harmon.

After the deputy passed Harmon's vehicle, a red and blue light bar in Harmon's vehicle 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," Brandon Hill said.  "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 Brandon Hill and an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper did some checking on the vehicle and several days later, 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 28th, Tulsa Police say they received a report of a similar vehicle driving on U.S. 169 using the red and blue lights.

On Tuesday, 40-year-old Daniel Harmon was arrested and his car and light bar confiscated. Harmon was booked into the Rogers County jail on a complaint of false personation of 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," said Sheriff Scott Walton.

Authorities say Harmon's car was an old Oklahoma City Police car that had been sold at auction. 

Harmon is free on $10,000 bond.