A disabled veteran from Central Texas has been arrested on misdemeanor charges after being found guilty of vandalizing his own pick-up truck and blaming it on a popular social justice movement in the U.S, reports KDFW.
In early September, Scott Lattin told police that vandals had spray painted his white truck with such activist messages as “Black Lives Matter” and “[Fuck] Your Flag, Your Family, Your Feelings, Your Faith” in response to the “Police Lives Matter” that he painted on his back window.
He also claimed that the individuals destroyed the interior of his vehicle and stole his laptop and scanner. The Lattin family publicly blamed the incident on activists retaliating against their advocacy for law enforcement officers.
“They need support so they can feel what they do, putting their lives on the line every day,” Lattin told KDFW at the time. “It’s the only truck we have and because of this, it’s totaled now.”
A chief with the Whitney Police, however, noticed that when authorities first arrived at the scene, there were no damages sustained to the vehicle’s interior. On the local news, however, the car’s glove box had been removed and the seats were ripped open.
That’s when the investigation shifted focus, and led the police to arrest Lattin on the misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.
Although Lattin now denies that he perpetrated the act for an insurance payout, his did admit in his arrest affidavit that he had conducted the vandalism “for insurance reasons.”
Lattin’s auto insurance company had provided the family with a temporary rental car and a claim check, which they described as insufficient to “cover all repairs.” As a result, a relative launched a GoFundMe campaign to compensate for their losses, promising to restore the truck with blue ribbons and the saying “Police Lives Matter.”
It raised more than $6,000 before the site disabled it, with one supporter writing, “My husband is an officer, I can give you $25 because that’s all I can afford.”
Authorities say they are considering filing felony charges against Lattin.
