A man with convictions for impersonating law enforcement is accused of doing it again, flashing realistic police lights while carrying a loaded pistol and allegedly trying to ram a family in a minivan on a highway in Ohio.
Dennis Meade, 52, faces one count of impersonating an officer, a first-degree misdemeanor, online court records show.
The case came to light on Saturday at 5:40 p.m. on a highway in Miamisburg, south of Dayton. The suspect, driving a white Chevrolet Tahoe, allegedly tried to pull over a couple in a minivan with two toddlers in the back seat.
Adam Hollon, the minivan driver, told police that the Tahoe driver flashed his lights to get him to pull over and tried ramming the minivan.
“He took a sharp turn and tried to ram me,” Hollon told an investigator, recorded on police body camera footage.
He said the man tried to hit him five or six times on the highway. From all outward appearances, the man appeared to be a law enforcement officer, with wheels like police cars, a spotlight, a PA system, radios, and sirens. But Hollon knew something wasn’t right about the lights, which were red and yellow or orange.
“That’s what made me know he wasn’t a cop,” he told the officer.
Hollon’s girlfriend told local FOX affiliate WXIX she was terrified for her children.
“I have a sticker on the back of my car saying I got kids in my car,” she told the station. “So I’m thinking that he was wanting them, and he was going to, you know, take us out and take them. And that gun … his gun was loaded.”
Hollon managed to get away and called 911.
When police pulled Meade over, an officer noted his vehicle had a light bar, a thin blue line flag on the tailgate hatch and a logo that read “Concerns of Police Survivors” with “C.O.P.S,” local CBS affiliate WHIO reported. Citing a police report, the Dayton Daily News reported the arresting officer thought the driver was “possibly a retired law enforcement officer of some sort.”
In the police footage, an officer explains why Meade was arrested, saying he had multiple priors for impersonating police and he had a pistol that he was barred from having. Police later said the gun was not used in the commission of a crime.
Police said Meade’s vehicle was equipped with a light bar in the windshield and flashing headlights and taillights. Inside the Tahoe, police found zip ties, gloves for evidence collection, a New York Police Department patch and handcuffs.
Meade denied to police he was in law enforcement and allegedly admitted he activated his lights and sirens to pull the minivan over, but he didn’t reveal why, WHIO reported.
“I’ve had better days,” he said in the back of a police car before an officer read him his Miranda rights.
He was booked into the Montgomery County Jail and released on bond, online court records show. He is set to appear in the Miamisburg Municipal Court on Wednesday.