Victim of possible police impersonator in Clermont speaks to WFTV

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — A 23-year-old Groveland woman was driving home after dropping off books at the Lake Sumter College Library when she saw police lights in her mirror, she told investigators.

The woman pulled over for the black Ford Crown Victoria and rolled down her window for the armed, uniformed man who approached her car just before midnight Sunday, a report said.

That man, though, was not a police officer, sheriff’s deputy or state trooper, authorities in Clermont believe.

After the woman stopped her car behind a restaurant in the 1500 block of East Highway 50, the man asked why she was in such a hurry, Clermont police said.

The woman told officers that the man then said something chilling.

“(The woman said) that the male stated to her that he may have known her from living a few streets away from her,” a release from the Clermont Police Department said.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, told Channel 9 the man asked her name, her parents’ name, and where she lived, but never asked for her driver’s license.

“It has blue lights on so basically it looked like it was doing standard procedure of what a regular police officer would do,” said the woman.

When the man noticed employees of the nearby Beef O’ Brady’s restaurant watching, he got back into his car and drove away, the woman and witnesses said.

She stayed in her parked car until someone called the Clermont police, which sent an officer to the scene.

He reported finding the woman crying hysterically.

The woman was so upset that the officer didn’t think it was safe for her to drive and called her mother to pick her up.

She said she’s still in shock over the incident.

“It just seemed like he was doing all the requirements that a police officer would, so to know that he may be an impersonator, it’s a little bit shocking,” she said.

Three of the restaurant employees told officers they saw the incident as it happened.

“(One witness) stated that the officer was clearly in uniform … and had a gun on his person as well,” the Clermont release said.

All three employees said they believed the man was an officer in an unmarked police car making a traffic stop.

Dispatchers told the officer that no agency in Lake or Orange counties had made the stop.

He had them put out an alert to all surrounding counties and agencies to be on the lookout for a man posing as an officer.

No other instances of fraudulent traffic stops in or around Clermont were immediately reported.

An investigation into the case is ongoing.

Cox Media Group