Aug. 18—An Annapolis volunteer firefighter has been charged with impersonating a police officer after a confrontation with another customer at a bank's drive thru, according to court records.
Mark Howley Higgins, 70, of Arnold, was served a criminal summons on one misdemeanor charge Thursday, court records show. An attorney has not yet been assigned to the case and when contacted over the phone, Higgins declined to comment.
On Aug. 12, officers talked by phone with a customer who had recently conducted a transaction at an M&T Bank branch on Bay Dale Drive in Arnold.
She told police that while she was being served in the drive-thru lane moments earlier, a white Chevrolet Tahoe pulled in behind her. Saying it "appeared to look like an unmarked police car," she told officers the Tahoe had black wheels, a ram bar, antennas and other equipment, according to charging documents.
As the woman continued her transaction, she said the driver of the Tahoe became impatient and used an air horn to get her to hurry, police wrote. Eventually, the driver got out of his vehicle and confronted her, according to charging documents.
The customer asked the Tahoe driver why he was impersonating an officer, to which he replied, "what do you think I'm doing? I'm going to investigate this." The driver, later identified as Higgins, then returned to his car and read her tag information into a dispatch radio, police said.
As police spoke to the woman over the phone, a responding officer saw a similar Tahoe pass by. Making a U-turn on College Parkway, the officer pursued the Tahoe, which made "an immediate left on College Manor Drive as if [the driver] was trying to avoid" police, according to charging documents. Eventually, police were able to conduct a traffic stop.
The officer asked Higgins whether he was a police officer, to which he replied no, but said he was a volunteer firefighter for Annapolis City. Higgins then told police he was upset that the woman at the bank was taking so long and that he was the cause or the altercation, police wrote. He also said that while he had used the radio in his personal vehicle, he never used his air horn.
The officer asked Higgins for his supervisor with the fire department and contacted Battalion Chief Phillip Morris, according to charging documents. At Morris' request, the officer wrote a report on the incident, police said. Higgins was not taken into custody.
A spokesperson from the Annapolis City Fire Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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