Report: Fake cop targets the wrong driver – a real one
A man accused of impersonating a police officer found out the hard way that the woman driver he tried to pull over was an off-duty police officer.
“He picked the wrong person,” then Floyd County Assistant Police Chief Mark Wal- lace said in February.
Tony Arden Ruth, 43, of 100A Reeceburg Road, was arrested shortly before 10 p.m. Feb. 14, after a report that he was using flashing lights and driving aggressively in an attempt to conduct a traffic stop on another motorist.
The report came from the driver, Floyd County police investigator Amy Nails, who was on her way home from an evening in Cartersville.
Ruth started flashing auxiliary lights in his grill and shining what appeared to be a handheld flashlight at her car, Nails said.
As he followed her down Turner McCall Boulevard, Nails called 911 and told the dispatcher what was happening.
“Fortunately, there were city and county officers close by. I don’t know if he saw them and got nervous, but he pulled into Kmart on Hicks Drive and was taken into custody.”
Ruth was charged with felony impersonating an officer and misdemeanor aggressive driving and reckless driving. He also faces three counts of cruelty to children in the second degree because there were three young children in Nails’ car.
The arrest report notes that Ruth’s wife was with him in his car, begging him to stop. Nails said he told the investigating officer he thought she was speeding and he was going to make a citizen’s arrest.
“The only reason I didn’t stop was I had three kids in my car, one in a car seat,” she said. “I’m confident if I would have stopped, he would have approached the vehicle. I don’t know what he would have done then.”
Ruth was indicted by a Floyd County grand jury in August.