GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Local police officers are searching for a former police officer they say is still trying to enforce the law.
Meserret Malde told Channel 2's Nefertiti Jaquez that when a strange man came pounding on her door on Aug. 27, she was terrified.
"I waited a little bit, then I opened it. He was standing there calm," she said.
The man was calm but pushy as he stood outside her Lawrenceville home, demanding she give him title information on a vehicle she and her husband sold three years ago.
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She didn’t understand why the man, whom police identified as Keith Kirkland, was at her door holding the title of a minivan they sold.
Malde said she knew there was something wrong so she called her husband. He rushed back to the house, but not before calling 911.
The police report, obtained by Jaquez, shows when officers arrived, Kirkland, who had a bogus badge and a gun tucked in his waistband, told them he was a DeKalb County Sheriff's Office reserve deputy.
With no confirmation at the time, they were forced to let him go.
But on Monday morning, Jaquez got her hands on a warrant charging the suspect with impersonating a police officer.
"He said, 'I’m a police officer' and he said, 'I have a badge. If you don’t believe me, this is who I am,'" Malde said.
Investigators said he lied because he was not actively employed by a law enforcement agency.
Jaquez did some digging and found Kirkland at one point was a cop.
In fact, online he publicly stated he worked for the DeKalb County Police Department in 2012 before taking a job with Emory University police, but he was fired after serving four years.
Jaquez went to the home address he gave the responding officers, only to learn it's a P.O. box. She confirmed he is the box holder.