By Daniel de Vise
The Washington Post
SILVER SPRING, Md. — A man claiming to be a police detective pulled a Montgomery County middle-school student off a school bus and drove off with him because the youth had thrown a plastic Gatorade bottle at his car, school officials said.
The May 2 incident stirred little interest until this week, when a police investigation revealed that the man involved is actually a private investigator. School officials have asked police and prosecutors to “aggressively investigate this matter,” said Brian Edwards, a school system spokesman.
“Needless to say, that was very disturbing -- that an individual would represent himself as a police officer” as a pretext to take a student off a school bus, Edwards said.
County police and state’s attorney’s officials said the matter is under investigation; the man, whom officials would not identify, has not been charged.
According to a letter sent to Pyle Middle School parents, the student -- also unidentified -- hurled the bottle at the car during a bus ride home from school. The car’s driver maneuvered in front of the bus to stop it, identified himself as a police detective, showed a badge and boarded the bus, according to Principal Michael Zarchin. He took the student to his car and called a police officer to meet him at the boy’s home.
The county police officer who went to the boy’s home apparently didn’t know that the man had represented himself falsely on the bus. Because the Gatorade bottle was plastic and had done no damage, the officer left without reporting a crime.
“It’s a matter of how much the officer knew at the time,” said Lt. Eric Burnett, a police spokesman.
Zarchin asked law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident because of the odd circumstances.
Edwards said school officials were “reviewing the matter and our procedures to make sure something like this doesn’t occur again.”
He said “several witnesses” heard the man identify himself to the driver as a police detective.
Seth Zucker, a spokesman for the Montgomery state’s attorney’s office, would not comment on what he termed an ongoing investigation.
Copyright 2007 The Washington Post