Firefighter Faces Charges of Impersonating Officer

A Vernon firefighter and former Los Angeles police station house reserve officer, already accused of stalking a TV star, has also been charged with impersonating a police officer to kidnap gang members in a “vigilante” action, authorities said Thursday.

Eric Lee Purvis, 25, of La Verne, “arrested” eight gang members near downtown Los Angeles and released one captive in the territory of a rival gang--where the gangster was in danger of attack--Deputy Dist. Atty. Randall Baron said.

He also twice beat another gang member with a flashlight, “allegedly just being a kind of a vigilante,” Baron said.

Purvis was being held in lieu of $1-million bail and will be arraigned Monday.

It was Purvis’ arrest in March by Burbank police on suspicion of stalking 16-year-old Richard Lee Jackson of the NBC sitcom “Saved by the Bell” that led investigators to identify him as the bogus cop known as “John Wayne” to youths in Pico-Aliso and other housing projects near downtown, Baron said.

Purvis visited the actor’s Burbank home wearing an LAPD uniform and carrying a loaded pistol, saying he wanted to question Jackson about an assault that supposedly occurred in Hollywood the night before, authorities said.

Jackson’s parents became suspicious when Purvis made several return visits, and called police, authorities said. Initially, Purvis told Burbank police he was helping with an LAPD investigation, then said he was there to “play a joke,” police said.

Purvis, who pleaded not guilty, is awaiting a preliminary hearing on that charge. His attorney was unavailable for comment.

After Purvis was charged with stalking, impersonating a police officer and unlawful use of a police car, LAPD investigators and Baron thought he might be the police impersonator they were seeking in the hunt for the downtown “vigilante.”

The fake officer drove a patrol car equipped with a police siren, wore a uniform and a fully stocked Sam Browne equipment belt and carried a loaded pistol, Baron said. He would stop gang members on the streets in the middle of the night, search them, detain them and drop them off at different locations, Baron said.

The fake officer earned his nicknames of “John Wayne” and “Hero,” Baron said. “He’s out there alone, in the middle of the night. . . . Even the gang members out there thought that this guy was something unusual.”

Following his arrest on suspicion of stalking Jackson, Purvis resigned from the LAPD, a police spokesman said. He had been a technical reserve officer at the LAPD’s Newton Division near downtown for 10 years.

LAPD Lt. Anthony Alba said Purvis was confined to aiding in station house duties and was not authorized to carry a gun or make arrests.

But after he was released from jail on bail, he continued to pull over gang members, now driving his own pickup truck, authorities said.

Police arrested Purvis on the vigilante charges Tuesday near his La Verne home. He faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted of the new charges, Baron said.

Vernon Fire Chief Dave Telford said Purvis has always been an exemplary employee during his seven years with the department. “He’s the kind of worker who if you ask him to do something, he’ll do it,” he said of Purvis.