DENVER – Authorities are warning of a man believed to be involved in several incidents in which he impersonated a police officer and targeted women in the Erie area.
Most recently, the man pulled over a woman just after midnight Friday on northbound I-25 at Erie Parkway, according to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office.
The woman he pulled over said the man was driving a black sedan with red and blue lights either inside the top of the windshield or atop the car. He is described as a white man, clean-shaven, about 6 feet tall with an average build and average-length brown hair, and was wearing a black, short-sleeved button-down shirt, black pants and a utility belt with a baton.
The woman noticed the man was not wearing a badge when he asked for her license and registration and she asked him why, according to the sheriff’s office.
He told her it was in his car and asked her to come back to his vehicle, at which point the woman said she would call 911 to get his badge number and he went back to his car and drove away, according to Joe Moylan, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.
There were similar incidents reported July 26 and 27 in Erie, and the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office is investigating another similar incident from within the last week, Moylan said.
“The one thing that stands out about our incident is that this the first time that we know that this guy’s asked to get a woman to get out of her car,” Moylan said in an interview. “So, he appears to be stepping up his game a little bit – getting a little more bold, a little more brazen.”
“The biggest concern is that somebody’s gonna get hurt,” Moylan added
The sheriff’s office advises anyone who believes they are being pulled over by a suspicious vehicle to turn on their hazards, stop in a well-lit area, try to get a plate number, and call 911 to confirm whether the person is a real law enforcement officer.
Anyone with information about the alleged police impersonator is asked to call Weld County Deputy Chris Dalzell at 970-400-4508.