When you evacuate your home in advance of a hurricane, it’s bad enough you have to worry about coming home to find a new indoor swimming pool in your basement. You certainly shouldn’t have to be concerned that your stuff has floated away in the back of some thief’s truck — or that this thief is also the same person who knocked on your door to order you to evacuate.

But this is the scam that a couple of scoundrels in Staten Island, NY, tried to pull on residents in low-lying sections of the Big Apple borough. According to the NY Daily News, the pair went door-to-door, flashing a fake badge and telling people to flee for higher ground.

“Something was off,” one local resident tells the Daily News about the couple. “My mom and her neighbor are in their 80s. They were looking for easy targets. I called the police.”

Police caught up to the couple shortly before the heavy rains started falling on Saturday afternoon. They were charged with criminal impersonation of a police officer. The 42-year-old man is a former officer for the city’s Dept. of Corrections. The female, who was carrying a knife of some sort, faces additional charges of criminal possession of a weapon.

Ex-correction officer arrested trying to evacuate Staten Island homes to rob them, cops say [NY Daily News]

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