BALTIMORE — At first glance, the 2012 Chevy Impala may have looked like a police car, with its extra side mirror and flashing lights mounted on the dashboard and inside the back window, but upon closer inspection, the emblem on the door, with the words “United Community Patrol” and “Public Safety” suggest something is amiss.
When an off-duty Maryland State trooper saw the same car activating its lights and then pulling a woman over near Greenspring Avenue on the Outer Loop of the Baltimore Beltway on Saturday, he conducted his own stop to check out this mysterious law enforcer.
“The trooper gets out of the car [and] makes contact with this suspect to find out he doesn't have any law enforcement credentials,” said Elena Russo of the Maryland State Police. “He looks like he's wearing all police equipment. He's actually wearing a vest over what looks to be like possibly a security guard uniform and it appears that he was trying to pull this woman over.”
Police say 54-year-old Timothy Ervin Trivett of Yorktown, Virginia didn't have a security guard license or a Maryland or Virginia carry permit for the 40-caliber handgun he was carrying, along with 10 rounds of ammunition, even though his expandable baton, handcuffs, knife and pepper spray containers, along with a badge carrying the words “Special Officer” may have given the impression he was the real thing.
He claimed he turned on his police-like lights, because someone was tailgating behind him and he had no intention of pulling over the female driver now parked in front of him, but troopers weren't buying it.
“Police do not know what this man's motivation was, particularly if he was trying to pull this woman over,” said Russo, “They don't know if he knows this woman, if there's any kind of communication that may have happened prior to our trooper seeing him driving erratically around 695 trying to make the stop.”
Trivett faces a charge of impersonating a police officer along with a series of handgun charges and has since been released on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
State police are encouraging any other motorists who may have been stopped by the phony cop to call the real ones to report it.
