Something felt off to the Atlanta police officer on overnight patrol who tried to strike up a friendly conversation with a man who appeared to be a fellow officer working security in a downtown parking lot.
The conversation and the man’s appearance were strange enough that the on-duty officer called in his supervisors Sunday morning before dawn, an Atlanta police spokesman confirmed. The supervisors who met with the man, later identified as Willie Fred Jackson of Decatur, first suspected he was working an off-duty job without prior approval, which might have explained his nervous demeanor.
As the officers continued to interact with Jackson, they noticed his body-worn camera was a different model than those issued by the Atlanta Police Department, and his uniform was slightly different. He was carrying a gun, but it was neither the right model or caliber for an APD officer, the spokesman said.
Investigators later discovered that Jackson’s gun was not loaded, according to police.
The story was not adding up for the veteran supervisors at the scene, neither of whom had seen Jackson before, the spokesman said. Finally, they checked the APD’s officer certification records and could not find Jackson. At that point, he was placed under arrest on charges of impersonating an officer and making false statements, online jail records show.
According to police, Jackson said he applied to work as an APD officer a few years ago but failed his physical exam. The investigation is ongoing, police said.
“We are asking anyone who may have encountered this fake officer to contact us,” the spokesman said.
In a frequently cited 2012 study on police impersonation, one of the only studies of its kind, criminologists Callie Marie Rennison and Mary Dodge identified three categories of offenders: “police enthusiasts, compulsive deviants and common criminals.”
The allegations against Jackson fit into the first category, which includes people who aspire to be police officers or believe they are helping law enforcement. In fact, police say impersonators have the opposite effect.
“Incidents like this undermine the relationship we have built with our communities,” the APD spokesman said.
Police in Suwanee dealt with a similar case late last month, department spokesman Capt. Robert Thompson said. Yasin Yasdizadeh was accused of impersonating an officer during a road rage incident July 20, according to an incident report.
It said Yasdizadeh pulled in front of a woman on Satellite Boulevard and stopped traffic, which Thompson described as a dangerous behavior that could have caused a wreck. He yelled at the woman and hit her car with his hands, then left when she called 911. The woman took a photo of Ysdizadeh’s license plate, which led Suwanee police to take out a warrant against him.
Yasdizadeh then unwittingly delivered himself to police a few weeks later when he stopped to talk to a Suwanee officer who was in the midst of conducting a traffic stop, the report said. The officer “noticed that he was swerving all over the road, so the officer left that traffic stop and went and pulled him over,” Thompson told Channel 2 Action News.
Yasdizadeh was arrested after the officer discovered he had outstanding warrants.
More recent cases from around metro Atlanta illustrate the other categories of police impersonation.
According to the study by Rennison and Dodge, criminals typically impersonate police for material gain through thefts or robberies. By pretending to be police officers, they are often able to gain entry into the homes or cars of their victims.
Earlier this year, 34-year-old Christopher Michael was arrested on charges related to multiple home invasions and robberies, Gwinnett County police said. In one case, Michael and several others were accused of posing as Drug Enforcement Administration agents and storming a Lilburn home at 4:30 a.m., kicking in the doors, terrorizing a family and stealing electronics, police said.
Less than a week later, police said Michael was part of another home invasion at an apartment complex while dressed as a law enforcement officer. He is accused of robbing the victims at gunpoint before carjacking another victim in the complex’s parking lot.
Michael remains in the Gwinnett jail on a bevy of charges. He has been held without bond since March 2.
In cases of “compulsive deviants,” criminals will use the authority of law enforcement to take advantage of their victims, often committing crimes like sexual assault or rape.
DeKalb County police arrested Christopher Griggs in October 2020 after he was accused of approaching a woman while wearing tactical police gear and carrying a badge and gun, then sexually assaulting her. He was booked into the DeKalb jail and bonded out a little more than four months later.
While Griggs’ sexual assault case remained open, he was arrested again and accused of murdering a pastor who tried to minister to him at his home, then burning her body in her car, police said. Griggs is charged with stabbing Rev. Marita Harrell, the 57-year-old senior pastor at Connections at Metropolitan United Methodist Church, in May 2022. Harrell’s burned-out car was found in an industrial area in Lithonia about 5 miles from Griggs’ home.
Griggs remains in the DeKalb jail without bond.
Experts say that anyone who is suspicious that a law enforcement officer might be an impersonator should call 911 to get more officers on the scene.
“Even if it is a real police officer that’s pulling you over, it’s better to be safe and have other officers on the way to verify that you’re safe,” Thompson, the Suwanee police spokesman, told Channel 2.
Jackson, the man recently accused of impersonating an Atlanta police officer, has not been charged with any violent crimes, but investigators are asking anyone who believes they have encountered a fake APD officer to contact them.
Information can be submitted anonymously to the Crime Stoppers Atlanta tip line by calling 404-577-TIPS (8477) or visiting www.StopCrimeAtl.org . Tipsters do not have to give their names or any identifying information to be eligible for the reward of up to $2,000 for the arrest and indictment of the suspect.
