The Indianapolis Star Sat Sep 28, 2013 9:35 AM

INDIANAPOLIS -- Thursday was a solemn time in Indianapolis, with police officers from across the state and beyond in town to mourn a fallen brother in arms.

Hundreds of uniformed officers attended the funeral for Indianapolis police Officer Rod Bradway. Afterward, they climbed into their patrol cars to follow a hearse to a cemetery.

Other officers lined the procession route, joining residents gathered streetside to pay tribute to a man who died protecting a woman.

Among those gathered near the Northwest District headquarters, where the hearse stopped for Bradway’s final radio call, was Minh Nguyen.

In police uniform, with a badge and a duty belt with firearms holstered, Nguyen was taking photographs from a black 2012 Dodge Charger equipped with a siren, flashing lights and a two-way radio.

A person asked if he was with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

“Yes,” Nguyen, 38, said, according to police.

It was a lie.

IMPD Lt. Scott Robinett heard the exchange. He also recognized Nguyen as someone he had warned previously about impersonating law enforcement, police said.

Nguyen was arrested at about 4 p.m. Thursday on preliminary charges of impersonating a public servant and theft. Impersonating a police officer is a felony, which carries a sentence of six months to three years in prison. Police later found guns, police uniforms and police equipment at the home of Nguyen, who has had prior arrests on similar and other unusual behavior.

The Thursday arrest stunned William Owensby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Indianapolis Lodge 86.

“People earn the honor of wearing a uniform and badge, like Rod Bradway did,” Owensby said. “For him to be out there posing like a police officer among all those other real heroes is offensive.”

A forensic psychologist said people who impersonate police officers are often looking for validation or a feeling of brotherhood.

Naftali Berrill, director of New York Forensics, a private consulting firm, said that generally two types of people impersonate police officers. Both types, Berrill said, pose a danger to themselves and others.

“One is the anti-social predator who uses the guise of a police officer to get into a home or car for the purpose of a robbery or sexual assault,” he explained.

“The other type is someone who is pretty well disturbed, with that classical feeling of inadequacy. But when they go as far as buying uniforms and inserting themselves into situations because their reality test is so strained, they are running the risk of getting killed or getting someone else killed because they are not police officers.”

Berrill said it is typically men who impersonate police officers, and they are often lonely or mentally disturbed.

“They may feel inadequate, with no real authority or power, and they can relate to cops because they see them as the ideal of what a man should be,” Berrill said.

The problem, he said, is when they go too far because they are unable to distinguish the line between reality and fantasy.

“When weapons are involved, it make me nervous,” Berrill said. “If these people are carrying weapons and thinking strangely, it could be trouble.”

Police said an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle was found in Nguyen’s car.

Nguyen also had “property stolen from the city of Indianapolis,” a police report said, including IMPD property room slips and envelopes that the public does not have access to.

Nguyen, the report said, “is not authorized by IMPD to have or use any IMPD property.”

Nguyen wore a duty belt that “included two visible firearms, radio with shoulder microphone, two sets of handcuffs and a Taser,” an IMPD report states. His car and uniform, down to the smallest details, the report said, “would lead a reasonable person to believe he was a police officer.”

Owensby said it is relatively easy for civilians to obtain clothing and other accessories that would allow them to pass as police officers. The one component that is hard to get, he said, is a department-issued photo ID.

“I would encourage anyone, if there is any inkling of an issue, to ask to see an officer’s photo ID,” Owensby said. “No one is going to take offense to that. The only person who’s not going to want to show one is someone who doesn’t have one.”

Nguyen has had somewhat similar run-ins before, police records indicate.

In August of 2004, according to an IMPD report, witnesses said Nguyen, driving a white Ford Crown Victoria, was activating strobe lights on his car and pulling over other vehicles. in the area of 25th Street and Post Road on the Far Eastside. Nguyen, wearing a security uniform, denied he was impersonating a police officer.

The report does not indicate that he was arrested and the Marion County prosecutor’s office has no record of charges.

In 2006, he was charged with unlawful use of a police radio, a misdemeanor, but the charge was dismissed, the prosecutor’s office said.

In 2012, another IMPD report said, he was under investigation on suspicion of being a “peeping tom.” A neighbor said he found a surveillance camera in his and his wife’s bedroom. The neighbor said he also found an image of his wife on Nguyen’s television. No arrest is indicated in that report.

Nguyen is scheduled early next week for an initial hearing in Marion Superior Court on Thursday’s charges, the prosecutor’s office says.

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(Contributing: Tim Evans of The Star)