TEXAS CITY, Texas — Wearing a thrift store coat with an authentic North Texas police department patch landed a man in jail for impersonating an officer, authorities said Wednesday.
While on patrol at 11:36 p.m. Tuesday, an officer reported seeing a bicyclist swerving, "all over the road," Texas City police Sgt. Joe Stanton said.
"He reeked of alcohol," Stanton said, reading from the officer’s report. "Before he approached, he could smell the alcohol."
The man, 20, was wearing a police jacket with a patch that read, "The Colony Police Department," Stanton said.
The Colony Police Chief Joe Clark viewed an e-mail picture of the jacket and patch and said it had been standard issue to police dispatchers and last issued a decade ago.
"Whoever they’re dealing with got it from a Goodwill down there," Clark said, noting the jacket had a chest patch that said communications on the coat.
It wasn’t a metal badge, Clark said.
"The word communications is in small print on the badge and not easily seen," Stanton said, noting the district attorney’s office would review the case.
"From a distance, a person would never be able to see the word communications," Stanton said. "It looks like a jacket a police officer would wear."
The man was charged with two misdemeanors, public intoxication and false identification as a peace officer-misrepresentation of property, Stanton said.
"The only thing he told them was a friend gave it to him," Stanton said. "We’re still trying to identify the friend."
The man was too intoxicated to be interviewed, Stanton said.
The man’s public intoxication charge was enhanced to a higher misdemeanor because he’d been arrested on that charge at least four times, Stanton said.
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