Getting pulled over by the police is one of life’s unpleasant experiences.
But things went wrong for one man in the most unexpected way.
And a Florida man thought the cops pulled him over but what happened terrified him.
Florida driver gets pulled over and finds out it is not the police
Usually, when a diver sees the flashing lights in the rearview mirror they can assume it is the police or some form of law enforcement pulling them over.
A driver was pulled over in the small town of Mary Esther, Florida on the state’s panhandle outside of Pensacola.
But the driver could sense something was not right with this traffic stop.
The supposed police officer showed the driver an Office of Naval Intelligence badge when he asked for identification and had a 9mm handgun on his hip.
He was supposedly pulled over for reckless driving.
A call to 911 confirmed that the police officer who pulled him over was a phony.
“Deputies found the citizen had been pulled over by 69-year old Salvatore Gruny of Shalimar,” the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “Gruny was in his personal Dodge Charger with flashing blue lights in the front windshield and red, blue, and white lights in the back window.”
Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene and questioned Gruny about the pullover.
They discovered he was retired from the Office of Naval Intelligence and had gotten in trouble for doing this type of thing before.
Fake cop got the hammer dropped on him by the real police
Gruny tried to tell the sheriff’s deputies that he was working for Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).
He was charged with a slew of crimes including unlawfully impersonating a police officer, illegal use of a badge, use of a firearm during a felony, illegal use of blue lights, and other crimes.
Gruny’s days as a fake police officer are coming to an end.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said police impersonation rarely happens in the area.
“We have unmarked cars and people in plain clothes but typically they’re not pulling cars over,” Aden said. “If you get pulled over with an unmarked car with us, it’s still going to be someone typically in uniform.”
“But most of the time people that are going to pull you over in this county, they’re going to have one of the green and white patrol cars with the big blue lights on them and it’s pretty obvious to spot us,” Aden added.
The sheriff said that anyone suspicious of a police impersonator can ask for the officer’s badge number and call the police department to confirm the officer’s identity.
Aden admitted he was not sure how many times Gruny had been busted for being a fake police officer.
“All we have is what ONI is telling us is that he had been warned about this type of behavior before,” Aden explained. “We don’t have anything on our records, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it here in this county, with some other jurisdiction — maybe in the city or somewhere else. We have no knowledge one way or the other of that. This is the first one we’ve dealt with this particular individual.”
Florida continues to confirm that the Sunshine State is home to some of the strangest criminals in the country.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
