Police officers caught playing cards on duty

The Greenville News ^ | 6 Jan 2004 | Andy Paras

[aomagrat]

Five uniformed Greenville Police officers and a trainee who were supposed to be patrolling Greenville communities were found playing cards at the Municipal Court building, Chief Willie Johnson said Tuesday. The officers account for as many as half of a given shift. Johnson said a third-shift sergeant found the officers recently in the Community Policing room at the courthouse.

[aomagrat]

Slow crime day?

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

If you want to find all the cops
They're hanging out in the donut shop
They sing and dance (oh whey oh)
Spin the clubs cruise down the block ....

Ah, the Bangles. Wonderfully mindless 80s trash. Gotta love it.

[maestro]

MERRY (Orthodox) CHRISTMAS!!

:-)

[cynicom]

The rest of them were "cooping".

[Jemian]

I would like to know a little more information, i.e. which Greenville? What is the population of that town? What is the rate of crime there? Is helping to keep them awake in a sleepy little town (again, I do not know which Greenville and yes, it does make a difference)? If the game was spades, just how long have they been playing and would they let outsiders play, too?

[E.Allen]

They forgot to add, after the Sgt wrote them up, she went back to playing solitaire on her computer.

[foreverfree]

I would like to know a little more information, i.e. which Greenville?

Judging from the links to Clemson's, Furman's and UnivSoCar's sports news, I'd say Greenville, SC, pop. 56,002. Clemson is in Clemson, SC. The U. of South Carolina is in Columbia. And Furman is right there in Greenville. Must not follow college sports too much, Jemian. :-)

foreverfree

[Fester Chugabrew]

Ha! They probably didn't let her play in their reindeer games, either.

[cpst12]

>>yes, it does make a difference

No it doesn't. They should all be suspended w/out pay. 5 cops sitting around collecting pay(taxpayers money) for playing cards.

Who wants to bet that if the taxpayers level funded or even just slightly decreased the police budget this year they would all be screaming BLOODY MURDER about how they could not possibly ensure the safety of the city with their budget "gutted".

We don't need lazy cops in *any* Greenville.

[woofer]

Doesn't sound like they're gonna get fired, tho' the trainee should have been axed on the spot along with whoever was partnered up with him.

If they're not going to fire them, I'd suggest that the time spent playing cards that night be averaged over the cops total on-duty time from their hire date, inferring that this is an ongoing problem, and they be billed for it.

[woofer]

The more I sat here, stewing, with this utter contempt the cops have for their tax-paying employers, the madder I got.

These five obviously feel that the tax-payers of Greenville owe them a premium because they wear a uniform and a badge. None of the five have a sense of duty or honor toward their city and neighbors. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that their superiors want nothing more than to be able to sweep this "incident" under the rug. The article said that they weren't gambling, yet all five had cards. I'm not aware of many card games that can easily be played with odd numbers of players without modifying the rules, which would take away most of the enjoyment of the game.

To me, this just seems like a scratch on the surface of a much wider problem. That is that the police depts., Sheriff's offices, State Police and Federal LEO's have had to beef up their numbers over the past decade that their standards on hiring are not as stringent as they used to be. I'm sure that most people have had run-ins with a sneering, "gonna give you a ticket 'coz I can", kind of cop. I keep hearing from friends that are nearing the 25 year mark of their careers as police officers that they can't wait to retire, mostly because their jobs aren't "fun" anymore. Their big complaint is that the citizenry doesn't seem to respect them like it had when they started their jobs. All of them, and I know a lot of cops, blame this on the "gung-ho" rookies that have ballooned their ranks.

If the citizens that pay these "officers" wages and benefits don't take this matter into their own hands and demand action from the city, these officers and their comrades are gonna see this as a test, one that they passed, and the floodgates will be opened, precedence set, and the chances of rooting out a bad cop will become a rare as firing an incompetent teacher.

[waterstraat]

If you subtract out all the time a cop spends playing cards, giving out speeding tickets, trying to make drug arrests, and doing paperwork, there arent really very many manhours left in the day to pro-actively try to seek out and find murderers, robbers, and rapists on the loose.

[Arrowhead1952]

Playing cards on duty? How awful of them.

At least they weren't fishing on duty like the Austin Police officers did.

Pun intended.

[Lokibob]

I disagree about the trainee. The trainee does what his supervisor tells him to do. Cerainly, the trainee needs redirection, but to fire him/her is not the way to go.

[highnoon]

As a lifelong Texan, I was just waiting to scroll down the story and see that these were Houston cops.

[Arrowhead1952]

There was a big stink about the APD officers that were fishing when they were supposed to be guarding the power station at Lake Long. All the talk shows, the Austin RAG, the local emails were talking about them. Heck, if they had been in plain clothes, they would probably been better at guarding the plant. No terrorist would have suspected them to be police.

[aomagrat]

South Carolina

[woofer]

I disagree about the trainee. The trainee does what his supervisor tells him to do.

I don't think the trainee's supervisor told him to go ahead and play cards with the guys.

[Lokibob]

Point taken, unless the supervisor was playing cards (which was my assumption).