A Texas man was arrested and charged with making a false police report on Friday after allegedly defacing his own car and blaming it on supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, the NY Daily News reports.
Earlier this month, Scott Lattin of Whitney, Texas told KDFW that vandals had spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” and “[Fuck] Your Flag, Your Family, Your Feelings, Your Faith” on his truck after he wrote “Police Lives Matter” on the vehicle’s back window.
“They need support so they can feel what they do, putting their lives on the line every day,” Lattin told the station at the time. “It’s the only truck we have and because of this, it’s totaled now.”
After the report aired, the Lattins were able to raise $5,855 in donations through the website GoFundMe.com.
Authorities, however, quickly noticed discrepancies between the damage seen by police and that shown on television. From KDFW:
“We had initial video when the officers took the report and then when we saw your story on Channel 4. When we looked at those two videos, there were some differences in those and that led us to take the investigation into a different direction,” [Whitney Police Chief Chris ] Bentley said.
Bentley said when they took the report there was no damage to the inside of the truck. But when FOX4 showed up, Lattin showed that the glove box was ripped off and the seats slashed.
According to court documents, Lattin later admitted to vandalizing the vehicle for insurance reasons.
“One of the social media pages said ‘My husband is an officer, I can give you $25 because that’s all I can afford,’” Bentley told KDFW. “That just ripped at my heart.”
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