Man who posed as police officer sentenced

A man who posed as a police officer and subjected motorists to phony stops in Chula Vista is scheduled to be sentenced today at the courthouse in Chula Vista.

Kevin Alan Kenniston was convicted last November of 20 counts, includingimpersonating a peace officer and violating a restraining order by breakinginto his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and assaulting her.

Kenniston. 43, was first arrested April 5, 2011, for using a black-and-white Ford Crown Victoria equipped with a siren, public-address system and roof-mounted lights to trick at least three motorists into pulling over. In at leastone of the cases, Kenniston used the phony traffic stop to deliver a 20-minutelecture to a victim about safe driving, police said.

In another stop, Kenniston used emergency lights and the public-addresssystem to confront a driver who was parked near a red or yellow zone. When the woman ignored him, the defendant blocked her car and demanded her driver’s license, registration and insurance.

Kenniston was free on bail in connection with the phony stops when hewas re-arrested in response to the filing of a police report by an ex-girlfriend who had taken out a temporary restraining order against him.

The woman said that on April 22, 2011, Kenniston parked his Jeep near ajogging path she uses in Chula Vista and later that day made a telephone callto her.

The next day, the woman said, Kenniston followed her into a supermarketparking lot and tried to speak with her. That evening, Chula Vista police wentto Kenniston’s Engleman Court home to arrest him, but he fled out the back doorand escaped.

The next night, officers were called to the woman’s home in northernChula Vista after her 11-year-old daughter said she saw Kenniston there,jiggling a door in an attempt to get inside, according to police.

Officers eventually took Kenniston into custody on April 25, 2011,during a traffic stop.