(CNN Newsource) – A Los Angeles police officer is under investigation after footage captured by a body-worn camera said to have showed him fondling a dead woman while responding to a call.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirms that about two weeks ago, a call came from Central Division, located near Skid Row, that the body of a woman, possibly dead, was found inside a residence.
Two officers, both male, responded and confirmed the woman was dead.
One officer went to retrieve paperwork from his car. The second officer stayed alone in the room with the dead woman.
LAPD confirms that that officer then turned off his body camera, and the allegation is “he inappropriately touched the woman’s body.”
According to sources, CBS affiliate KCBS was told that the video shows that the officer apparently fondled the dead woman’s breasts.
Sources confirm that even though the body cam had been shut off, they are designed to still record for two minutes after being shut off.
At the end of his shift, the officer, as he is supposed to, turned in the video from his body cam for that night where it was stored with literally thousands of hours of other body cam video.
A few days ago, an officer in charge of looking at body-cam video at Central Division took one off the shelf at random, put it in his machine and looked at it.
This, from the police union:
“If this allegation is true, then the behavior exhibited by this officer is not only wrong, but extremely disturbing, and does not align with the values we, as police officers, hold dear and these values include respect and reverence for the deceased. This behavior has no place in law enforcement.”
The officer in question has been described only as a veteran. He is on leave with pay during the investigation.
