While Training Day was by no means a documentary, there have been a whole variety of scandals involving police officers who abuse their power for wealth and influence. Unfortunately, this often means that regular civilians have, at times, encountered even beat cops who use their station for personal gain.
Someone asked “what’s the most corrupt thing you’ve seen happen from your fellow officers?” and netizens, both cops and civilians shared their examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to detail your own experiences in the comments section below.
#1
We used to give homeless dudes rides in the back of the car all the time. Technically wrong, morally right Lol.
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#2
My buddy’s dad used to run with a biker gang and one of the ‘club members’ got an officer arrested because he had 3 pounds of grass and they charged him for 2. He was so adamant about the other pound they had to investigate and sure enough one of the arresting officers was in possession of a pound of marijuana.
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#3
Maybe not the most corrupt, but one of the most slimy.
The weekend watch commander and four officers were stealing money from people brought in intoxicated.
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#4
Police in South Africa resold/redistributed confiscated firearms to gangsters and thereby fuelled the gang wars in Cape Town. Amongst a lot of other things. Oh yeah, also over 4000 cops carry firearms despite not having passed the proficiency test. Also, over a 1000 firearms were „lost“, in one year.
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#5
Not a cop, but talked to a retired one at a wedding. Told me he would randomly arrest black dudes in NYC, and press their faces against the blistering hot hood of his car in the summer heat. His justification was that even though he didn't see them do anything wrong, he knew they were up to something. So he was "scaring" them into behaving. I wanted to say something to the guy, but he and several other attendees were open carrying and didn't know that I'm gay and not that brand of southern white dude. I just bowed out as quickly as I could. .
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#6
Someone in my neighborhood was chief of the local department.
One evening he got drunk, crashed a police car. Then he went back to the station, took a new car, crashed it again. Only to return to the station again, and crash a third car.
I’m pretty sure he became chief again in a nearby department recently.
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#7
Not a police officer but happened in my hometown.
Chief of police was up for a new contract so one of the city manager wrote it up and got the rest of the city council to sign off on it, without reading it.
Turns out the city manager was the father (or some relation) to the chief of police. The contract paid him one of the highest salaries for a chief of police in the country, this is for a town of 60k in Massachusetts. The contract also had a clause that if it was ended by anyone but the chief he would get a payout of 1mil+, which the city couldn't afford.
During the pandemic he refused to take a pay cut so the city had to lay off a bunch of officers instead.
They finally got rid of him a few years back but the corruption involved was staggering.
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#8
I had a friend who joined the force because he wanted to help people. He quit because of all the s**t he saw.
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#9
In the early 90's had the chief spend 300K on top quality industrial saw machines for the little craft shop we had because he was going to renovate his house. Attitude by then was that it wasn't corruption but handsome for all who would also need some wood for home.
Having some higher officers smash an illegally borrowed police car to get home after going into town while totally loaded on c*****e and alcohol (Hey uppers and downers level each other out...) also was a nice one, their high ranks saved them and it was dismissed as a normal accident.
For the rest a lot of small things that could have happened everywhere. This was in the Netherlands and corruption was not o.k. but not much was done about it.
I also loved Uruguay and how easy and nice the bribing system was. Wanted to rent a motorbike for my holiday there and although I had a lot of experience I had no license, rental dude told me to get to the municipality building in town, but they were closed and it had a sign where in case of emergence they were, so I went there to find 4 guys drinking beer upfront of a bar. Shared some beers with them and paid their meal and we had some casual fun chat about football and after that they wrote me a permit on a piece of paper to drive motorbike for two weeks free of charge :D.
Image credits: mageskillmetooften
#10
Been an officer for 15+ years. Maybe I'm biased but my agency's very strict about lying and corruption. Got a few stories about cops getting fired:
We had a hurricane and an officer called out saying a tree was blocking his street so he couldn't come to work. His sergeant drove to his house and called him from his driveway. fired.
An officer forgot to have a suspect sign a ticket for shoplifting. Instead of handling it by proper procedure the officer forged the suspect's name on the ticket. The officer was charged with felony forgery and eventually pled guilty to a misdemeanor, resulting in termination.
An officer was spending time at home while on the clock. Eventually IA got a search warrant for the cameras inside of the officers house and found they were doing chores and other non work related activities. Fired and charged with embezzlement for stealing time.
An officer was shaking down prostitutes at hotels for money. Fired and criminally charged with embezzlement.
An officer was clocking in for court off duty and then going home and milking overtime. They caught him mowing his yard while on the clock. Fired and charged with embezzlement. This officer had weeks to reaching a full pension.
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#11
Most corrupt I was somewhat a party to: a detective had somehow weaseled his way into an old-timer's will. I learned of it after he had been found out and the will had been corrected.
Most corrupt I'm aware of: one of my police academy classmates from a different department got arrested for coercing prostitutes to screw him while he was on duty. He set up each encounter as a quid-pro-quo, but some of the girls had been in custody while these arrangements were made. Yeah, if you're in custody, you cannot consent. That's r**e. Learned this through the grapevine; no idea whatever became of it. The piece of s**t had a beautiful little family, too.
*Edit:* Holy c**p, I can't believe I forgot this one! I was once crossing the street in a crosswalk, off-duty. I heard a car accelerating, and looking towards the sound, I saw a sports car barreling toward me. I waved both my hands over my head and pointed at the crosswalk, but the car kept coming. I literally had to run to get out of the way. As the car passed me, the driver locked eyes with me, and I saw him and his buddies laughing. So, I took note of his license plate. When I got to work that evening, I mailed him a ticket for speeding and the crosswalk violation. I could have criminality charged him for reckless engagement, but didn't. A few weeks later I got a call from a state trooper that lived in town, asking me to ~~blood~~ *void* the ticket. I explained the circumstances and he pressed on. This trooper is/was the largest of a******s and had a nasty reputation. Not wanting to cross him and land on his bad side, I voided the ticket. Oh well, he got his eventually when he was fired, charged, and convicted of racketeering.
Edit: corrected my swypo.
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#12
Obligatory not a police officer but I used to chat with an officer who worked in my area because he passed by a place I used to hang out at nights. He once told me this story about how they were preparing a raid on an illegal poker club, allegedly run by some mafia or another. Everyone gears up and packs up into their cars and once they're at the place in question and getting ready to barge in, his supervisor receives a call from the commander telling him to pack up and go home and not bother anyone or anything there.
Whatever was going on was well beyond his or his supervisor's or even the commander's paygrade.
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#13
Obligatory not a cop, but where I am is a very rural area. This guy I know was having trouble with a woman bothering some people who were renting a place from him. The tenants said they'd called the sheriff and they'd refused to help. Guy calls the sheriff's office and says hey, this woman's been bothering my tenants, but they said you wouldn't send anyone out there. The deputy says, yeah, she's a pain in the a*s and we've already wasted a bunch of time on her on other calls. He continues, we won't go out there, but if *you* were to go out there and she were to have an "accident", just call me, and we'll notify the coroner and we won't say anything more about it.
I'm not sure it gets much more corrupt than signing off on an extrajudicial killing of someone who's not really breaking any laws just because they're a pain in the a*s. .
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#14
Wife was a dispatcher in central Washington for a number of years. When we first started dating, One of her deputies was routinely stalking his ex-wife and her boyfriend - often sitting outside her house while - both on and off-duty, engaging in intimidation of the boyfriend, etc. On one of these “excursions” he scared away the boyfriend and proceeded to r**e the ex-wife. She reported the r**e and he was arrested shortly thereafter. He ended up hanging himself while awaiting trial.
I had gone on a ride-along with another one of my wife’s deputies just a month or so before all of this occurred and met him for the first and last time on a call to a suspected gang fight. Seeing how he talked to and interacted with the suspects that day, I can assure you he was the type of officer that is headlining in the media these days. I was absolutely ZERO surprised when this all came to light not long after.
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#15
Co-worker used to be a cop. He was early on in his career when his shift supervisor picked him up for that day’s training. It was early morning, and the shift supervisor, who I remind you had been driving and continued to drive, was drunk off his a*s.
Co-worker quit at the end of the day. Looked into reporting it, but got told by a lawyer that the thin blue line would prevail, so he kept quiet about it and tells as many people as possible to not drive within five car lengths of a police car.
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#16
This happened during my ride along before I got hired...
On the ride along, we got a call to the house of a neighboring department's sergeant. The oldest son of the family beat the ever loving s**t out of his mom.
When we got there, the dad (sergeant) had to be woken up and talked to downstairs. He couldn't care less. He was more upset about being woken up than his son beating the s**t out of his wife.
The officer I was riding with, told me they were familiar with this son and past instances of beating up his mom, and they usually dealt with this on the level of a "professional courtesy"... but it had gotten so bad with this latest instance, the kid would have to be charged. Which, in his words, was "too bad, because the kid wanted to be a cop really badly.".
#17
(I'm not in law enforcement)
I live in Clark Country, Indiana. Our former sheriff was just convicted of several crimes, including stealing from his non-profit ambulance business and using sheriff resources for personal business (among others things). The guy owes over $3 million in restitution and was given a 12 or 15 year prison sentence.
Google Jamey Noel (yes, the same sheriff that did the first two seasons of "60 Days In")
This is a case where the corruption was actually prosecuted. He has some family moments being tried and some other associates. I sure his web was wider than what was caught, but it has been a major local.news story for the last year.
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#18
Not a cop, but dated a New York cop… he drove incredibly drunk off the clock and caused a multi-car accident. His boss covered it up for him and he got away without even a ticket.
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#19
Texas made it a Felony in 2021 to be a "John." Or someone who solicits a prostitute.
They busted a brothel in Texas and offered immunity to two girls who has very fresh "samples" of their work on their bodies.
One of the samples belonged to one of the cops on the raid. Meaning he was with the girl less than 15m before he took part in the raid.
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#20
Not a cop, but this is a cop to cop information story.
A local youngster cop (that I knew from school, he was always a complete moron and total a****t) who was boating while very very drunk, killed someone who was swimming in a lake within the designated swimming area by striking them with the bow of his boat at high speeds. M*rderer cop fled the scene, and immediately went on duty somehow as a cover story. Fellow cop friend of his "found the body" as he happened across it, and dealt with it. Dad of said drunken boat cop (who was also the sheriff) bailed him out of trouble with a judge he was really good friends with when a case was tried. Drunken boat m*rderer got off by simply re-locating to a different police district as punishment. I don't think the m****r was ever solved officially with a legit cause of death outside of "accident", but it's been spoken/joked about across the county from the story drunkenly slipping out from several different sources who are acquainted with the sheriff father. I don't believe either is any longer an officer.
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#21
Not a cop, but one place I bartended at some of the local PD would bring us w**d they got off people that was not worth the paperwork. In turn, free food and drinks.
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#22
I live in the UK and had a police detective mention to me that if he leaves anything unlocked in the police station changing room it gets stolen by other police officers. For example deodorant, clothes, aftershave, shoes etc.
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#23
Lots of these examples are of US cops; this happened years back in London England. It was told to me by a relative who was a serving officer at the time
A young constable went to an address as the elderly occupant (F80s) hadn't been seen for a few days. He eventually gets in she's dead at the bottom of the stairs with a head injury; her house had been ransacked and jewellery missing. He calls it in, and shortly, two hungover detectives turn up and tell him to wait at the front door, let no one in etc..
After approximately 30 minutes, he hears a loud banging and tearing sound. He glances around and notices one of the detectives has kicked a hole in the carpet at the top of the stairs. Meanwhile, the other detective is wrapping up the tidying. As they leave, they casually mention, "She fell. It was an accident."
so yes, cover up a m****r as you're too lazy to investigate it.
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#24
I was roommates with a couple of Criminal Justice majors in college. One got a job in a jail but was fired for roughing up inmates. He later got another gig and was injured on the job and now collects a little bit of disability and his life is a mess.
My other roommate was a got a job in Vallejo. This is where the "Gone Girl" case happened. Even after all of this he maintains that the couple lied and set the whole kidnapping up. Also, he said there was a fireman who lived outside of town. Night shift police officers would go there because he had a bed set up. They would sleep all night unless they got a call. They would not patrol neighborhoods or anything. Vallejo is a pretty rough place and the police staff was understaffed by a long shot. Still dudes would be sleeping all night. I remember his wife commenting how he has more energy than she does throughout the day eventhough he worked all night. .
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#25
My hometown is about 15 mins away from one of those communities where millionaires build their summer mansions. As a kid my grandfather loved to tell me histories about hard work paying off, but as he got older he has lost his filters, now his favorite is about how he had a deal with the cops, whenever the rich children where caught doing something dumb he would get a call and 'save the day' for a fee from the parents, and they would split the profit.
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#26
A civilian employee was selling information in our database to biker gangs.
She was caught and charged accordingly. .
#27
Officer 'lost' a radar gun for weeks—turned out he was using it to clock his pitching speed at Little League practice.
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#28
I was a newspaper reporter. I knew a small town city administrator who would borrow the fire department's heat detector to go ghost hunting with his paranormal investigation club.
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#29
Not a cop, but I used to have a football coach who was a cop. He gave opioids to a student whose dad was a lawyer and was forced to leave the school and police department. He's now the head of security for a major hospital in a different state. It's wild how things like that don't seem to follow people.
#30
Not a cop. Had a regular at our bar that was a state trooper, who routinely received commendations and awards for the sheer number of DUIs she intercepted. She was very proud of these.
She drove home drunk from our bar 4 times a week.
#31
We had a police chief who was in charge of all the police vehicles. When we switched from Harley’s to newer bikes they started dismantling all the old bikes.
The chief then took it upon himself to start selling parts from the old decommissioned bikes and kept the profit. A lot, if not all of the other officers in our department were very displeased with him doing this. I don’t know if he got reprimanded but the civilian staff shut that down rather quickly.
#32
Had a "friend" who would ride with a police buddy he had, they would "pull over" people they knew had d***s, and take them and party...
#33
My stepdad used to be a cop in Detroit and told me that anytime a cop finds contraband on you and lets you go with a warning but not the contraband , it’s because they are keeping it for themselves. I’ve also have a dealer that gets his firearms through sketchy connections with Atlanta Police.
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#34
I gave a cop 150 bucks to not run my name after an accident that wasn't my fault. I had a suspended license...
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#35
I was about 17, and driving to church. There had been a minor accident at an intersection that i needed to drive through. The cop managing the traffic waved me through, and I carefully and slowly wound my way past the tow truck, cop cars, etc.
A guy from the towing company stepped out in front of me from behind his truck. I stopped safely, but the guy fell down (presumably due to the surprise of seeing my car so close to him. We never made contact.
I got out to make sure he was OK (he was), and the cop came over and started chewing my a*s for hitting him. The towing guy even told the cop that I hadn't hit him, and the cop basically waved him off.
The cop proceeded to scream at me for five or six minutes, then ticked me for striking a pedestrian (a serious charge in my jurisdiction) and threatened several times to take me to jail when I tried to explain myself.
I took the ticket and went home. I showed the ticket to my father, who was a captain on the fire department. He picked up the phone, made a call, and tore up the ticket.
My father made sure to tell me that he thought that cop was an a*****e on a power trip, and that the only reason he made the call was that he believed my version of the story, and that he wouldn't be getting me out of any legitimate citations.
No more was ever said about the incident. Anybody else would have lost their license and/or paid thousands in fines because that a*****e cop wanted to shake down a scared kid.
#36
I live near Valdosta ga. A new deputy responded to a call, an old dude found a couple guns in his yard the cop wrote em up took em after 90 days the guns weren’t reported stolen or anything. Old guy called up the department asked for the guns they obliged but didn’t know anything about the shotgun. The sheriff called the deputy, grilled him he admitted to taking it he got fired. Maybe charged with something?
#37
When I was just out of high school, I was 17 and had two on duty city policemen bring my friend (also 17) and I a cooler of beer multiple times over the course of months.
It was coolers they'd confiscate from other kids out cruising around. One of the cops wanted to bang my friend. To my knowledge, she never did.
#38
Not a cop, but have a few stories from cop friends.
Back in the mid 2010s it was a common sight around my district to find police cruisers parked in gas stations and other such places at night. However, upon closer inspection, one would find the cars to be empty, lacking fuel, and sometimes even missing parts.
Apparently they were putting old cruisers cannibalized for spare parts near these buildings to "pretend" there is a police presence, but in reality there would be no cops anywhere to be found.
Image credits: JamesKoach
#39
Literally everyone drinking on the job.
#40
The Chief of Police in my town paid me a looot of money to dump chemicals in the harbour while renovating his yacht, under the table of course. "Isnt this like super illegal, wont i get in trouble?" "Bro im the chief of police!" The patrol boats would hang out with me while i did it too.
He also had me smoke cigars with him when i was 16, and we shot illegally loaded cannons across the bay for fun during events sometimes. Lit with the cigars of course. He would shoot off his shotgun into the air during this.
#41
My colleague always extorts veggies and fruits from the vendors, one time we had a huge fight over the same and now I work nights.
