CLEVELAND — Cleveland Police told a News 5 reporter on-scene that officers located a vehicle believed to be used in a police impersonation incident on Sunday and made an arrest in Slavic Village on Tuesday morning.
Police said they found the Dodge Durango they believed was used in the police impersonation and arrested one man for burglary, unlawful restraint and drug charges.
Police did not say whether the arrested man was involved in the police impersonator incidents.
However, police did say the Durango could be connected to a couple of incidents that happened on Sunday, including a pursuit that terminated that night and the car the impersonators tried to pull over hours earlier. That incident did not end in the robbery - the victim drove himself to the Third District Police Station.
Before the driver of the Durango was arrested on East 71st and Worley Tuesday, police say he forced his way into a house occupied by three other people who did not know him. Police said he did not live there. No one else was arrested at that time.
“The whole block was full of [police] — I’m talking about the whole St. Patrick Labor Day parade — that’s what it looked like,” said neighbor Alante Madox.
Madox couldn’t get to his home right away.
"I was expecting it to be a shootout,” said Madox. There wasn’t a shootout.
Police say the arrest was initially for an outstanding felony drug warrant but the man is also charged with burglary and unlawful restraint.
"The people inside the house the suspect ran into were victimized," said Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia with Cleveland Police. "They're victims of a burglary. That person had no business going into their home, and again, these people had nothing to do with it, and that's frightening."
The man under arrest yelled to a News 5 reporter from the back of a police cruiser that there was "nothing" in the Durango. Police quickly rolled up the window, and he started kicking the door from inside.
The possible break came moments after police released three photos of a Durango and a Jeep Cherokee.
"We know that the victims were trying to drive away from the suspect and there was a Jeep Cherokee maybe trying to cut off the other car to get it to stop,” Ciaccia said.
Police have been investigating a series of incidents in which individuals driving vehicles with flashing red and blue lights pulled over motorists, robbing unsuspecting drivers at gunpoint.
Police officers first spotted the Durango on the city's West Side Tuesday morning, and officers in unmarked vehicles followed the Durango to the Slavic Village area.
The U.S. Marshals Service was the agency that ultimately made the arrest.
According to police, there have been at least five incidents involving someone impersonating officers, pulling over motorists and robbing them.
"I put my hands up when I rolled the window down then I recognized it wasn't the police," Andrew Alexander said.
Alexander told News 5 Investigators Monday he came face to face with police impersonators April 1 who were armed with handguns and an AK-47.
As a CCW holder, he thought about defending himself.
"It was either me or them. I chose my life, I gave them one of my guns and my cell phone my car all my belongings because it's just material things," Alexander said.
- The first incident happened March 7 on Route 2 and the W. 45th Street exit
- The second happened on March 28 at 152nd Street and Lakeshore Boulevard
- Then again on March 31 on W. 65th Street
- The fourth recorded incident happened on April 1 on W. 48th Street
- Then this past Sunday, April 2, on Broadway and Blanche avenues
On Tuesday morning before the arrest, police released photos of suspected vehicles.
If you do get pulled over in a situation like this, police want you to call 911 and talk with a dispatcher to see if this is a real stop by actual police officers.
RELATED: CCW license holder shares terrifying experience with Cleveland police impersonators
Anyone with information regarding these incidents is asked to call Crimestoppers at 216-252-7463.
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