Knoxville man charged with impersonating police officer

A Knoxville man was arrested late Tuesday on charges he drunkenly impersonated a police officer and pulled a gun on a 70-year-old man who was just trying to eat his tacos.

It turned out the accuser, John Diodato, had two friends nearby, and one of them works as a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy.

Patrolman Billy Littleton was off duty and unarmed but helped defuse the situation until Knoxville Police Department officers arrived.

Kevin Lee Knight, 41, faces charges of aggravated assault, impersonating a police officer and possession of a handgun while under the influence, court records show.

It all started Tuesday night, when Diodato, of Greenback, and his friends, Littleton and Jason Gilroy, parked at Greene Military, an army surplus and police equipment store at 7215 Kingston Pike.

It was about 11:30 p.m., so the store was closed. Littleton and Gilroy got out of the car and went around the side of building. Littleton said he often parks there to avoid the busy lots of nearby restaurants, where he goes to eat with friends he met in the police academy.

Diodato stayed in the car. He’d just purchased three tacos from Taco Bell — supremes. He downed one and was contemplating the second when he noticed a man sitting on some steps outside the store, staring right at him.

“I’m sitting there, and he reaches behind him and pulled out this Glock,” Diodato recalled Thursday. “He clicked a shell in the chamber and was facing toward me.

“I said, ‘Oh, ——. I’m in trouble now.’ “

The man was holding the gun at his side, Diodato said, when he began walking up to the car. Diodato quickly used his cellphone to call Littleton.

The man announced himself as police, Diodato said.

“He said, ‘What are you doing here, selling drugs? Where’s the owner of this car?’”

“I said, ‘Hey, I’m eating a taco, buddy. That’s what I’m doing.’”

On the phone, Littleton said he heard a man asking questions and identifying himself as a “cop.”

“I’m like, ‘Hmm, OK. Maybe a policeman stopped by and is talking to him,” Littleton said.

Littleton walked back around the building to see a man wearing a jacket displaying “some law enforcement-related patches,” with “a holster and a gun right up to his hip towards John.”