MIAMI – A man resembling a fake police officer who stole a gun from two men last month was pulled over on the Palmetto Expressway, but officers let him go after realizing he was a corrections officer.
Surveillance video shows a bald man in a black Corvette with blue and red lights pulling over a car at a gas station at Southwest 137th Avenue and Coral Way on Oct. 17. Miami-Dade police said the imposter stole a gun from the men in the car he pulled over, then left.
On Friday morning, after the video was released Thursday, police officers pulled over a black Corvette on the Palmetto Expressway near Northwest 25th Street and took the driver out of the car, an incident that shut down southbound traffic for more than an hour. Then suddenly, the officers let the man go.
Local 10 stayed on his tail and asked the man, Victor Mederos, what happened.
"They told me to pull over," he said. "I pulled over. I put my hands up. They told me to loosen my seat belt, and as soon as I took the seat belt off, they grabbed me by my shirt, took me down to the ground, tore my shirt. They handcuffed me."
Police thought Mederos was the fake cop who stole the gun.
"They thought I was armed and dangerous," Mederos said. "I was a little bit ticked off because, you know, the way I was treated, but I guess it's part of their job, and if somebody has a weapon on them, they have to be very careful, so I don't blame them for that."
Mederos was armed. He has been a Miami-Dade corrections officer for 21 years.
"Once they had me on the ground, they took my weapon off me and then they took my wallet off me, and it has the ID right there as soon as you open it," Mederos said.
There is a striking resemblance between him and the bald officer imposter.
When asked if he learned anything from Friday's incident, Mederos said, "Yeah -- I'll let my hair grow, maybe."