NBC5 TV-News,
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Dallas police issued a crime warning Thursday night after a series of robberies by a police imposter.
Sgt. Gil Cerda said Dallas police are investigating eight robberies of Latinos involving a fake cop since last October. Some of the robberies involved cars being stopped. The rest took place at homes.
“This fella knows they keep a lot of money at home,” Cerda said. “They don’t use the banks.”
Police say the fake cop is working east and west Oak Cliff, targeting Latino families from behind a phony badge.
The Ramos family heard a knock at their door late one night, and it turned out to be a thief pretending to be a cop.
“He had said he had found two guys and he needed to identify them ‘cause they said they lived here,” Juanita Ramos said.
The imposter then bolstered his story with another lie.
“He got this wrapper with these pieces of Sheetrock making it seem like they were cocaine,” Ramos said.
She said the fake cop called her husband a drug dealer. He made family members empty their purses and wallets and ran off with their cash.
“He was clipping something, which was a cell phone, but he made my sister think it was a gun, so she got scared,” Ramos said.
Jesse Diaz said language barriers and uncertainty about rights make Latinos targets.
“We just didn’t know that was going to happen,” Ramos said. “We never expected that to happen to someone like us.”
Dallas police said the important thing for people in the Latino community to remember -- despite immigration status -- is to call 911 after an encounter with a suspicious cop.
Police say the man dresses in dark clothing and has a fake badge and police identification card.