Thursday, August 14, 2008

Officer Alph Coleman Arrested for Aggravated Robbery

Dallas police officer Alph Coleman was arrested on suspicion of aggravated robbery on June 27 of the Sam's Club in the 2900 block of West Wheatland Road.

Court records show that Coleman tried to rob the Red Bird-area Sam's with two other men, and made up a story covering his participation. You have to read the story involving a bullet-proof vest that Coleman says was shot at, but evidence shows wasn't. It's all pretty elaborate and also seems clearly fake. It also sounds like they never ended up actually taking anything. One of the other two men has been arrested; the other is still at large.

He said he was held at gunpoint in a Sam's Club robbery was accused Tuesday of staging his role as a hostage in the failed heist.

Dallas police Officer Alph Coleman was charged with aggravated robbery after evidence implicated the four-year veteran in planning and carrying out the June 27 holdup, Dallas police Lt. Vernon Hale said.

Coleman was in custody at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on a $50,000 bond for the aggravated robbery charges, a jail spokesman said. It was not immediately clear if Coleman had an attorney. He has been placed on administrative leave.

Coleman was working off-duty as a security guard, but in his police uniform, when he told investigators that a man held a pistol to his head inside a Sam's Club store and forced him against his will toward the accounting office.

The robbery failed when employees barricaded themselves inside a storage room, police said. Coleman had said he was walked outside the store, pushed to the ground and heard two gunshots.

Coleman fired three times at the suspect, according to a Dallas police report. The suspect fled and was not caught, and Coleman was hospitalized with a shoulder injury.

Coleman's uniform shirt and ballistic vest were taken to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences but a trace evidence analyst found no gunshot defects, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. No gunshot residue was found on the shirt or the vest.

Coleman has been with the department since 2004 and has no history of disciplinary actions, police said.

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