More than two years ago, Luciano Amador Velazquez unknowingly drove home on a night that would conclude with him facing — and subsequently being found not guilty of — a third-degree felony charge.
On that night in February 2023, Amador claims a Ford F-150 with bright lights was closely following him in his work truck on Hwy. 199 near Azle. Amador turned on Newsom Mound Road, and the Ford was still behind him. He pulled over and let the truck pass, but he thought he saw the driver flash a gun. (Amador later second-guessed when he first saw a firearm.) In response, Amador activated the red-and-blue lights that he mainly used for his work in construction.
Inside the F-150, the driver (who requested anonymity in a previous interview) realized that Amador wasn’t a police officer and decided to call the real authorities. But the incident didn’t end there and instead went on for another 2 miles on Newsom Mound Road. Amador said he tried to execute a pass, but the F-150 blocked him. According to dashcam footage from inside the F-150, the driver continued to follow Amador, despite members of his family inside the vehicle pleading with him to stop. The F-150 driver justified his actions by saying that he was protecting other drivers from Amador while also insinuating violence against and threatening Amador several times.
The F-150 driver stopped at Sabathney Road, where Amador was going to turn toward home. Amador stopped behind the Ford and waited for the driver to make a turn or keep going straight. After growing impatient, Amador passed the F-150, turning down Sabathney, and saw that he was still being followed. Amador sped off, but the F-150 pursued him to Ice House Road, where the conflict reached a tipping point. Then, the F-150 driver allegedly pulled out his gun.
Not too long later, Parker County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived on the scene. Amador was accused of “impersonating an officer” and was arrested. The F-150 driver went home.
In the aftermath, Amador fought back against the charge and said that he never tried to pass himself off as a police officer. This was also his lawyer Veronica Veyhl’s defense logic while the case was being tried in Parker County’s 43rd District Court.
“Our position of this the whole time was that he had been overcharged,” Veyhl said. “There was never a question of, ‘Did he have red-and-blue lights in his car?’ That was always the thing, but the issue with that and being charged with impersonating a public servant [in this case, a police officer] is there has to be an intent to induce the other individual into thinking that they actually are the public servant. And what we were saying was that he didn’t have this intent to do that.”
What’s needed to convince someone you’re a cop? A vehicle imitating a police squad car, a siren, a uniform, a gun, a badge, pulling someone over to ask them if they know how fast they were driving. None of which Amador had or did.
The trial took place last week, and the jury concluded that Amador wasn’t guilty of impersonating a police officer, which is punishable by two to 10 years in prison plus a fine. They instead convicted him of a Class C misdemeanor for having the red-and-blue lights in his truck. Amador will have to pay a fine as well as court costs and fees, totaling $545, said Parker County District Attorney Jeff Swain.
“I think [the jury] understood that the nature of this law is designed to keep people safe from feeling like someone’s going to come try and impersonate a cop and rape them, kill them, rob them, whatever it is,” Veyhl said. “But [the jury was just] like, ‘This is not that case.’ ”
Even the foreman of the jury openly questioned why this issue had gone to trial and implied that it was kind of a waste of time for the court, Veyhl said. For her part, Veyhl didn’t call the trial a waste of time, but she did acknowledge that the case could have been settled without a trial and that that could have made way for more severe cases to be heard in court instead.
“I definitely think that someone’s life was put on the line when it didn’t need to be,” she said.
After the trial ended, Swain maintained that Amador misrepresented himself as a police officer, even though the F-150 driver indicated that he knew Amador wasn’t a cop in the dashcam video.
“As prosecutors, we are concerned any time someone who is not a peace officer misleads another person into thinking they are a peace officer,” Swain said in a statement in which he also thanked the jury, the deputies, and the trial team. “That was what occurred in this case when this defendant turned on the red-and-blue lights in his vehicle. However, the crucial issue in trial was what the defendant’s intent was and not how his actions were perceived. In the defendant’s testimony, which it seems the jury believed or which at least created uncertainty in their minds, was that he was not trying to act as a peace officer but was rather trying to annoy the alleged victim. That belief or that uncertainty was what led jurors to decide to convict the defendant of the secondary charge of unauthorized use of lighting equipment instead of the primary charge.”
Veyhl specifically didn’t want the trial to center on Amador’s Hispanic-American race, but she did acknowledge that it was context that could have played a part in the trial. She pointed out a moment during the trial when one of the arresting deputies was questioned about the decision not to secure the F-150 driver’s firearms during the investigation or at least check to see if they were loaded. She said he responded, “When you’ve been doing this for long enough — or 15 years, I think, is what he said — you start to know who the dangerous people are.”
To be clear, the deputy wasn’t talking about the unarmed Hispanic man, who is now able to move on with his life.
“I am so thankful for what happened and for my lawyers showing that I am not guilty,” Amador said. “I never tried to be a cop, and I’m glad somebody finally listened to me.”
