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A 28-year-old Alcoa man was charged with criminal impersonation of a police officer when officers spotted the man driving around with multiple strobe lights on his vehicle Thursday night.

Alcoa Police Officer Dustin Cook said he and Officer Mike Devore noticed the vehicle at about 11:45 p.m. on Louisville Road. The 2003 silver Dodge Ram 4-door pickup was displaying several strobe lights.

"I looked up and I saw the lights going," Cook said. The truck had strobe tail lights, reverse lights and LED lights on the tailgate, he said.

The officers first thought the vehicle may belong to someone with the 5th Judicical Drug Task Force, but then they saw an unknown man get out of the vehicle at Wal-Mart, 1030 Hunters Crossing Drive, Alcoa.

The suspicious truck was parked beside another older model pickup truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Upon approaching the driver of the Dodge Ram, the 28-year-old said he was helping three women who occupied the other truck.

Cook said when the man was asked about the strobe lights, the 28-year-old said he worked for a Knoxville construction company. He then gave officers verbal consent to search his vehicle, and they found switches to work the lights and discovered six-head strobe lights and wig-wag lights.

There were also amber LED lights in the grill and on the running boards of the truck. There was a "siren box" in the truck, which makes all of the same siren sounds that police cruisers make, and a police scanner, said Cook.

The man was wearing a white T-shirt bearing the Tennessee Sheriff's Association logo.

The three females told Devore that they encountered the man when they had car trouble.

"They were traveling southbound on Alcoa Highway when their power steering belt broke," Cook said.

The 17-year-old female driver said she lost control of her vehicle and thought she hit the Dodge Ram. She then pulled her car over and the Dodge Ram pulled up behind her. The 28-year-old man asked the three women in the older model pickup if he could help them. The three females reported that they asked him if he was a police officer.

"He never answered, he just smiled at them," Cook said.

The women also said that the man "kept trying to persuade them to get out" of their vehicle, but they refused. He then followed them from the U.S. Highway 129 bypass to Wal-Mart.

Officers arrested the driver of the Dodge Ram, later identified to be Jose Ruben Gonzalez, 28, Lindsey Street, Alcoa. He was charged with criminal impersonation of a police officer and was being held in lieu of a $1,000 bond pending a Sept. 29 hearing in Blount County General Sessions Court.

Officers read Gonzalez his Miranda rights -- which he waived -- and he told officers he was a member of the Tennessee Sheriff's Association, according to an Alcoa police report. Gonzalez allegedly told officers he had purchased the emergency equipment through an Internet company and installed the equipment four months ago. He told officers he had not used the equipment until this incident, according to the report.

Officers later obtained consent to search Gonzalez's residence Friday, where they found additional possible evidence.

Anyone with information on similar encounters should call the Alcoa Police Department 24-hour crime hot line at 380-4715.