Police are not happy with a man they say set up a drunk-driving checkpoint complete with road flares while pretending to be a Pennsylvania state trooper. They are even unhappier because he allegedly was drunk at the time.
Troopers
say 19-year-old Logan Shaulis, of Somerset, a town southeast of
Pittsburgh, parked his vehicle diagonally across state Route 601 and
set up road flares at about 4 a.m. Saturday. A
motorist who stopped said Shaulis claimed he was a trooper and
demanded to see a driver's license, registration and insurance
papers.
The
motorist said Shaulis identified himself as Steve Rogers, a member of
the state police drug and alcohol division, the local Johnstown
Tribune Democrat newspaper reported.
When
real troopers arrived, police said, Shaulis tried to hand a BB pistol
to the car's passenger and said, "I can't get caught with this."
A
local resident, Sue Weimer, said she knew something was wrong because
of how late it was. "We saw cop cars, we saw flares, we couldn't
figure out what was going on," she
told local
TV station WTAJ. "It was about 3 o'clock in the morning."
Another giveaway, police said, was that police never man checkpoints
on their own."You can see as many as 18 officers being required
to be involved in a checkpoint," Somerset Borough Police Chief
Randy Cox told WTAJ.
According
to police, Shaulis had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech; he also had
a pair of handcuffs and a portable scanner with him. He was charged
with carrying a firearm without a license, driving under the
influence of alcohol, unlawful restraint, possessing an instrument of
crime, official oppression, criminal coercion, reckless endangerment,
impersonating a public servant, harassment, disorderly conduct and
public drunkenness.
Shaulis
was arraigned by District Judge Sandra Stevanus and sent to the
Somerset County Jail after failing to post $50,000 bond. He
remained jailed Tuesday. Online court records don't list an attorney
for him. A
preliminary hearing is set for June 9.
1 comment:
Huh. I'm surprised they didn't charge him for underage drinking as well.
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