'Worried for no reason': Man impersonating OKC utilities employee, police say

Oklahoma City authorities are raising the alarm after reports of a person impersonating a city utilities employee and going door to door in metro neighborhoods.

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - Oklahoma City authorities are raising the alarm after reports of a person impersonating a city utilities employee and going door to door in metro neighborhoods.

The City of Oklahoma City said the person is telling people their water is contaminated and needs to be tested, even though there have been no reported issues with Oklahoma City's water quality.

"This is not something that Oklahoma City utility personnel would typically do," said Gary Knight with the Oklahoma City Police Department. "The vast majority of the time, they will not need to be in your home for any reason at all."

Knight said it's not very often that a utilities employee is impersonated, but it does happen. He said when it does, it's important to get that information out to the public because it can lead to a dangerous situation for anyone.

"You don't know what that person's intentions are," said Knight. "Whether they're going to swipe something, then whether they're going to attack you or whether they're going to come back later and and burglarize your home."

Knight's advice was too late for one Oklahoma City resident News 4 spoke with Monday who lives in the Somers Pointe neighborhood. Destiny Walls said the stranger paid her home a visit nearly two weeks ago.

"I heard an aggressive knock and doorbell ring, so not thinking much of it my husband answered the door," said Walls. 

"When he answered the door there was a guy standing on the porch that stated that he needed to check the quality  of our water...due to complaints, various complaints about the water being unsafe."

Walls said the man looked legitimate, so her family let him in, thinking he was in fact an employee for the city. Walls said he was wearing a reflective vest, wearing a badge and carrying a suitcase with "testing supplies."

"He took out like little streps and tested the water from the sink in the kitchen and tested it with a Walmart-branded bottle of water," said Walls.

Walls said the testing drug on, as if the man was putting on a performance, before he shared results she and her husband found troubling at the time.

“He said, well it shows here that you have high levels of chlorine and arsenic that could potentially kill you," said Walls. "You need to make sure that you have that fixed because it's not safe to drink. He says these types of levels can lead to your hair falling out."

Walls said the man insisted to talk to her instead of her husband and also insisted they have a purification system installed. She said he also said the issue had been happening a lot in the area, and talked around questions about who he actually worked for.

"On its surface, it may seem legitimate, but it's never a good idea to let somebody in without checking first," said Knight. "If you don't know this person, you should automatically be suspicious of them."

Walls told News 4 she feels as if her personal space has been invaded and that the man was casing her home out. Knight said Oklahoma City Police has had several people reporting similar experiences.

"The reason that it concerns me so much after going through the footage is that he was in my neighborhood for quite a while," said Walls.

News 4 also spoke with residents in the Chisholm Crossing neighborhood, just a few miles away from where Walls lives, where the City of Oklahoma City recently shared concerns about the man popping up. While residents News 4 spoke with said they had heard about the incident, none of them said they had seen the man or let him inside of their homes.

Knight said any city employee coming to residents doors should be able to provide identification or a phone number you can call to verify they are who they say they are.

"Get their name, ask them a lot of questions," said Madisyn Monroe, a Chisholm Crossing resident. "If they start fumbling about questions, if they act like they don't answer your questions, just be like, no sorry, thank you for the information."