MIAMI — Miami police say they arrested a fake security guard who donned a “ballistic vest” and a badge and worked the FIFA Fan Festival at Bayfront Park for three days before anyone realized he was unemployed and had warrants.
Authorities said at around 6 p.m. Tuesday, a Miami police sergeant noticed Elton Casallas, 58, of southwest Miami-Dade, walking through an exit gate and “greeting multiple security guards while walking through the venue.”
According to an arrest report, the sergeant asked the guards if they knew who Casallas was and who worked for; none of them knew.
Police said the sergeant stopped Casallas at a gate at Chopin Plaza and “and asked him if he was working security for the event.”
According to the report, Casallas told the sergeant that he had been working the event since Saturday. Police said event staffers confirmed that Casallas “does not work for any security company staffed for the event.”
The report states that authorities additionally discovered that Casallas had three traffic-related bench warrants and had “a pocketknife and a canister of pepper spray.”
Police said Casallas had a security license that expired in May.
Under questioning, Casallas said a company had hired him and he “had taken a security post at one of the security checkpoints and was responsible for watching over bags left by patrons at the entrance of the venue,” the report states.
Authorities said he then showed investigators text messages between him and a security supervisor, which police said “at no point proved any employment with any security company.”
Additionally, they said they contacted the security supervisor, who said that he had given Casallas his phone number and Casallas, who “proceeded to text (him) to the point he became uncomfortable responding.”
“It was determined that (Casallas) was at the venue on his own will with the intention of being hired by a security company on location,” police wrote in the report.
Officers arrested Casallas on a charge of falsely impersonating an officer with a deadly weapon, in addition to the traffic warrants. As of Wednesday afternoon, he was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with a bond listed as “to be set.”
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