LAPD cops who preferred playing Pokémon Go to tackling robbery can be fired, appeals court rules A California appeals court last week upheld the discharge of two Los Angeles police officers for ignoring a robbery call because they were busy playing Pokémon Go while on duty. Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell, fired from the City of Los Angeles Police Department in 2017 on misconduct charges, after it was found they had …
Wow. Nearly 20 years and then playing video games at work.
I've played video games at the office for a job, where the owners were every bit as much into gaming as their friends and staff, and so hosted LAN parties on Friday nights. But I've never played video games during office hours unless "the boss" had called an end to the day and proclaimed it time for the games to begin...
If I was supposed to be working then no games got played. If the boss said the games were ok then I'd go ahead & play. Usually the LAN party, but occaisionally stuff like NetHack or Rogue.
I can't imagine how those officers thought it a good idea to give their job TheFinger so they could play a game. Especially a crime in progress call. That alone should be enough to not only fire them, but fine them, strip them of their badges, & toss them in jail to have all the time in the world to goof off.
One of my childhood friends used to tell me how he "gamed" the system as a DPS freeway officer to make an actual decent salary, as cops don't typically get paid the most. He would work a LOT of overtime with odd jobs at odd hours, thus improving his income, but usually just hanging out at DOT construction jobs playing his Gameboy or watching TV.
You know, those guys that sit in a cop car at off-ramps you're NOT supposed to get off at, with his lights on, doing nothing 99% of the time. Before that I always thought they just parked an empty car there with the lights on to scare people off, but no, your tax dollars pay for someone to be in there, doing nothing but playing games or watching TV in one flavor or another, usually at time and a half hourly rates.
This was even more egregious, like actually opting NOT to show up to a robbery because pokemon go was more important, but still, it always irked me a bit when he'd call me bored during those overtime sitting festivals with nothing better to do but soak up my tax dollars. I guess that's why we aren't close friends anymore...
My screen reader said your username & the next line as if it were all a single line entry.
"The Basis of everything is ... an inappropriate post".
I'm still LMAO & will buy you a dozen pints in congratulations over such an awesome arrangement. =-D
If you need a police presence in a location, to enable swift response to any calls (traffic accidents or criminal activity), the police need to be somewhere there. Parking out of the normal traffic in full view provides a visible presence encouraging people to drive safely through simply reminding them by being there.
So those police "doing nothing 99% of the time"? That's because you only see them when they're not doing anything else, and even there they're helping you reach your destination swiftly and safely.
"cops don't typically get paid the most"
While this is certainly literally true (only one person somewhere gets paid the most, and that person isn't a cop), I don't think these particular officers can claim to be so grossly underpaid that they needn't bother doing their job. Like most government jobs in the US, being an LAPD patrol officer pays quite well. Source: https://www.joinlapd.com/salary. Given their time on the force and the possibility of even minimal overtime, they were certainly making over $100k a year, not including non-cash comp like a medical plan and time off, and also not including the generous pension plan that pretty much only government employees get nowadays, at taxpayer expense naturally. There are very few private-sector jobs in which someone who never finished high school can get a 6-figure salary, full medical, and a fat pension. What's especially astonishing is that LAPD pensions vest after 20 years of service, and one of these clowns had 18 years in at the time. Choosing to play a game instead of doing his job cost him at least $1m. Everyone in LA should be relieved that someone with such poor judgment is no longer being paid to carry a gun in their city.
Some will point out that $100k or even $125k plus generous non-cash comp and a pension still isn't that much in LA, but it's certainly enough to live decently well. It's also a lot more than many people are paid and most of them presumably don't expect to sit around playing video games all day without getting fired when the boss finds out. Let's lay to rest the "poor public servant" defense. These guys were getting plenty of money to do their jobs with the promise of a lot more later in life. There's no excuse.
WTF? I wonder why they weren't found guilty of "1. Failing to respond to a robbery-in-progress call;" but WERE found guilty of all the other charges? It must be some sort of technicality because at least one of the other charges pretty much damns them for not attending the call.
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