The Washington State Patrol discovered that that a man who reportedly impersonated a law enforcement officer actually works as a sheriff’s fire investigator in King County.

A woman reported a man drove up next to her and pointed towards the shoulder attempting to get her to pull over, holding up a sign with the word “Sheriff” written on it, at approximately 4 p.m. on Jan. 3, 2011. 

She described the man as approximately 50-years-old with grey or light brown hair wearing a tan jacket and driving a 2007 Gold Ford Expedition.

“This same vehicle has been reported several months ago with the same behavior,” according to a press release that the Washington State Patrol released around 7 p.m. the night of the incident.

“If encountered by this subject,” The Washington State Patrol asked the public to, “call 911 and continue driving to a well populated area – do not pull over.”

Around 6 a.m. the next day, the Sheriff’s deputy called the Washington State Patrol to turn himself in.

“The next morning, we got a call from this guy and who called in and said, ‘yeah that sounds like me,’ ” said Trooper Krista Hedstrom, a patrol spokeswoman. “Apparently he had heard about it on the news and on the radio, and he called in and talked to our detectives.”

“He’s not supposed to make arrests or pull people over, but he said he wasn’t trying to pull her over–just trying to get her off her cell phone.”

The other “suspicious incident” related to the car happened when someone called in to say that it had a light blue bar in the back, but wasn’t actually a police car.

“There’s a lot of unmarked vehicles, and with him being a fire investigator, it would make sense that he would have some type of markings on his car,” said Headstrom.