An arrest at the Houston Police Department Westside Patrol station has officers puzzled, after an ex-con was found snooping around inside the restricted parking lot.
Some officers say the guy behaved like a terrorist in training, while other veteran officers think he’s just a nut.
HPD officers noticed what they described as a Middle Eastern man, checking out patrol cars and officers’ private cars deep inside the restricted rear parking lot at the Westside Patrol station on Dairy Ashford.
The lot is well secured, with “restricted area” signs posted at the only entrance so any unusual movement is sure to draw attention.
On this particular evening, the intruder was carrying what looked like a police radio and HPD officers say he appeared to be talking into that radio as he checked out various cars in the parking lot.
When officers approached, he told them not to worry. He said he was a special agent with the US Department of Defense and he was working on a mission that allowed him to be walking back in the restricted police lot.
It wasn’t true.
Adnan Aqil, 34, who lives in some apartments on Leawood, is jailed on a felony count of Impersonating a Police Officer.
Prosecutors write in the criminal charges against him that he tried to get HPD officers to comply with his “pretended official authority” by
“stating that he was allowed in the police personnel only area because he was a special agent with the Department of Defense.”
Some HPD officers now wonder what he was really doing back there among their police gear and the cars they drive home from work every night.
One HPD officer said he was behaving like a ‘terrorist’ while another said he seemed like a ‘terrorist in training.’
Aqil was arrested on the same charge in 1998 when police say he posed as an HPD officer so that he could park his vehicle at a business. He said it was official police business. The charge was later dropped.
Aqil did serve a 5-year prison term for burning down a $1-million home in an insurance scam.
In court documents on that case, investigators with the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office said he poured gasoline throughout the swanky home at 7802 Links Crossing in the “Augusta Pines” subdivision north of Houston, and then he lit it up on February 11, 2007.
Investigators said his life-long pal had lied on a loan application to buy the home that he had no way of affording.
That friend told investigators it was supposed to be an investment property, but he had no way of making the payments. He also had no way of selling the home, the friend told interrogators, so he came up with a plan to burn the place down for the insurance money.
Aqil was paid $5,000 for setting the fire, which destroyed the home. He was promised another $5,000 once the insurance check would arrive. He was kind enough to commit the arson while his friend, the property owner, was conveniently away on an island vacation. It was supposed to be a great alibi.
He was given probation and he avoided prison until he kept on breaking the law and the judge in that case revoked his probation and sent him to prison in March 2009.
He was released from prison on parole. As with any parolee, he was required to obey all laws or else he could be shipped right back to prison.
Now, a motion has been filed to revoke his parole and send him back to prison because of his latest arrest in the HPD police station parking lot.
Court records show the 228th District Court judge has ordered a psychiatric evaluation in this latest case.
He’s being held without bond and is due to stand before the judge again on October 25th, but he could be sent back to prison to complete his five-year term before that date arrives.
