Friday's Internet Edition, September 10, 2010.
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| The Coryell County Sheriff’s Department recently purchased a Dodge Ram, nullifying a statement made by an earlier department not to stop for trucks because the county did not use trucks. The statement was made in response to a rapist who used a truck with a police light to stop his intended victims. – Photo by KRISTAN HALL |
News editor - Coryell County’s purchase of a patrol truck has nullified a statement the Sheriff’s Department made in the early 1990s in response to a rapist who was using a truck with a amber rotating light to stop his victims.
Then - Sheriff Gerald Kitchens said motorists should not stop for trucks because the Sheriff’s Department did not use trucks for patrol.
That has changed with the county’s purchase of a 2003 Dodge Ram. Sheriff Roger Faught requested the truck instead of a car as a replacement vehicle. Faught said that there has been occasions where a patrol car could not reach the scene of an incident due to weather.
A white male driving a Ford pickup with colored lights such as those used by the police stopped vehicles he believed to be occupied by lone females in the summer months of 1991, said then-Investigator Rick Helms, who is now a sergeant in the narcotics department. Two sexual assaults at gun point did occur as a result of this impersonation, he said.
According to a press release issued in 1991, the suspect was five-feet-ten-inches, weighing 180 pounds, with a noticeable pot belly, a dark complexion and chipped front teeth. His truck was dark-colored, possibly brown, maybe in the 1973 to 1977 series, said the press release, and the amber lights were at the upper corners of the grill, one above each headlight. The suspect was never apprehended, said Helms.
Although the suspect may have left the area, Chief Deputy Doug West said those with doubts as to who is stopping them should drive to a lighted area or call 911. The person making traffic stops should also be in uniform, he said.
The truck is used by Lieutenant Carl Magee of the Sheriff’s Department. The lights on it are red and blue, not amber or orange, said Magee. The truck will also have a decal on the windshield that reads “Sheriff’s Department” when motorists view the truck in their rearview mirror.