MCPD said the 67-year-old man had been allegedly conducting traffic stops outside Montgomery County.
MONTGOMERY VILLAGE, Md. — After charging a man with impersonating a police officer, the Montgomery County Department of Police released body camera footage on Wednesday afternoon of officers pulling over the phony police van and arresting its driver.
It’s not often that the driver in a car with red and blue flashing lights is the one getting pulled over. But that was the case last month in Montgomery County as officers pulled over Alejandro Ceferino Zunca, 67.
“Why are you advertising yourself as a police vehicle?” an MCPD officer repeatedly asks the man in the video. “Are you a police officer?”
“I was,” the man claimed.
MCPD body camera footage freeze-frames on the 67-year-old Montgomery Village resident’s Ford Transit van custom with sirens, police markings while carrying a replica gun and a phony Baltimore City police badge.
Although Zunca told MCPD that he was a former police officer ─ and at times, referred to himself as a current police officer ─ the 67-year-old did not provide officers with evidence of either claim, an MCPD spokesperson said.
Not only did Alejandro Ceferino Zunca, 67, apparently advertise himself as a cop had also allegedly conducted traffic stops of his own, pulling cars over in areas outside of Montgomery County, based on tips sent to police.
“Investigators are concerned that he may have conducted similar stops within Montgomery County,” an MCPD spokesperson said Wednesday.
Among the collection of misleading items reportedly recovered from inside the van were an expandable baton, a baseball cap, a Taser and a roll of yellow caution tape.
Later described as officers as a replica black pistol, a phony gun was labeled in the body camera footage as a “weapon.”
“It’s a tear gas,” Zunca claims in the police video.
The words “HAPCOA Police” were written on the van’s hood and side door, an apparent reference to the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association ─ a police affinity group that is not authorized to drive its own separately marked cars.
Zunca described himself as a “liaison” to police for the Hispanic community, in the body camera footage.
The 67-year-old was also charged with driving a vehicle marked and equipped to resemble a police cruiser.
Arrested by MCPD earlier this month, the Montgomery Village man was released from the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit on a $2,000 bond. He was awaiting trial as of Wednesday, while the District Court for Montgomery County deliberates on a trial date.