By T. Scott Boatright
A Mississippi woman who tried to get out of a traffic stop by claiming to be a corrections officer and security officer had False Personation of an Officer added to her charges after being pulled over in Ruston early Saturday morning.
A Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy on patrol shortly after midnight Saturday morning was headed to attempt to assist on another traffic stop when he observed a vehicle stopped at the corner of 2nd Street and Pecan St. for an extended period of time.
When the driver asked the vehicle’s driver, Karon Denise Patten, 24, of Lorman, Mississippi, if everything was all right she reportedly told him everything was fine and the deputy said he informed her that she needed to move the vehicle from the intersection because she was stopped in the roadway at a stop sign.
Patten’s arrest report says that she told the deputy no one was coming and she was going to move, but then rolled up her window and remaining sitting stationary, making no attempt to move the vehicle.
The deputy reported he waited “about 15 seconds” before knocking on the window again and again telling Patten that she needed to move the vehicle.
Patten then reportedly again she was going to move the vehicle and again rolled up the window and again remained stationary.
The deputy reported that he waited approximately another 10 seconds and then once again knocked on the window and it was rolled down again. The deputy reported that he then informed Patten that the incident had become a traffic stop and requested her driver’s license and insurance information and registration.
At that point Patten’s arrest report says that she told the deputy, “I’m an officer, I know the law” and rolled up her window and started to drive away.
The deputy reported that he then returned to his patrol unit and activated his overhead emergency lights and pursued the vehicle where it eventually stopped in the 100 block of Water Tank Road.
Patten’s arrest report says the deputy then ordered the suspect more than 10 times to exit her vehicle but that she only asked, “Why?” each time, to which the deputy said he told her multiple times because it was a lawful order.
The deputy said that after several minutes of that back and forth conversation the suspect exited her vehicle but that when deputies tried to remove her phone from her she began turning away to prevent them from doing so. After reportedly having her phone and vehicle key forcibly removed from her person, she was handcuffed, informed she was under arrest and placed into the back of a patrol unit.
