Posted on 11/11/2005 11:28:13 AM PST by kingattax
A Seattle police officer called to a fight between a man and a woman made no arrests and took no report, instead quitting his shift early to take the woman involved to his place for sex.
After an investigation prompted by the woman's fiancé, Officer Lance Basney was suspended for 30 days without pay. But this week, Basney succeeded in appealing that discipline before the city's Public Safety Civil Service Commission; his punishment was reduced to five days.
Still, an attorney for the Police Department was pleased, saying the finding supports the department's position that even off-duty conduct matters.
"We're happy the commission supported the chief's decision that off-duty conduct can constitute misconduct," Mark McCarty, an attorney for the Police Department, said Thursday. "But we believe the conduct justified more discipline."
Sgt. Kevin Haistings, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, disagreed, saying the decision focused on Basney's conduct while he was on duty, in that he met the woman through the course of his police work.
"Exactly at what point am I a private citizen again?" Haistings asked. "I don't believe the decision clarifies that."
The case was prompted by an incident in the summer of 2004, according to a report released Tuesday by the commission.
About 10:24 p.m. on June 21, 2004, Seattle police received several 911 calls reporting a fight at the Scarlet Tree Restaurant in North Seattle, with at least one caller reporting that a man had hit a woman, knocking her to the ground.
Basney, a 12-year veteran, and Officer Rusty Leslie responded. The two officers learned from patrons that there had been an argument between a man and a woman, though from their interviews with witnesses, it was not clear that she had been assaulted.
advertising Both officers said the woman showed no signs of having been assaulted and denied that she was a victim of an assault.
The man who had been with her was her cousin, she told the officers, but he had left the scene before police arrived. That man, it turned out, was engaged to the woman.
Witnesses agreed that the woman was intoxicated, though Basney told other officers that she did not appear so to him.
In interviews with department investigators, Basney said the woman told him he was cute and offered to have sex with both him and Leslie.
Leslie declined, but Basney ended up asking to take the rest of his shift off as vacation time, as is allowed under department policy, and cited a personal matter.
Neither officer filed a report on the incident.
Basney drove the woman to the North Precinct in his patrol car. While she waited outside, he changed into civilian clothes, drove the woman to his apartment and they had what was described in the documents as consensual sex.
Later, Basney dropped the woman off near the home of her fiancé. When the man learned what had taken place, he filed a complaint.
According to exhibits filed in the hearing before the commission on Sept. 21, investigators contacted the woman involved, but she did not wish to participate in the investigation.
She said she was too intoxicated to remember much of that night, and did not know whether she was driven home in a patrol car or a civilian vehicle. She denied having sex with the officer, though Basney admitted to it in an interview with an internal affairs investigator.
In December 2004, police Chief Gil Kerlikowske disciplined Basney for failure to take appropriate action, in that he never reported to the department that he was transporting a female civilian.
The department manual encourages an officer to notify dispatch when transporting someone of the opposite sex, and suggests using an officer of the same sex for the transport.
Kerlikowske also found that Basney behaved in conduct unbecoming an officer. He ordered a 30-day suspension without pay.
The commission overturned the chief's finding on Basney's transport of the woman. In its report, the commission members wrote, "While Officer Basney exercised very poor judgment under the circumstances in not reporting the transport, his failure to do so did not violate that departmental manual section."
The commission agreed that Basney's conduct was unbecoming an officer, noting that in order to pursue the sexual encounter, he drove an intoxicated woman, who was the possible victim of an assault and whom he met through the course of his official duties, in his patrol car while on duty.
McCarty, the department lawyer, said Basney has not yet served the discipline, but would soon. Basney could not be reached for comment. P-I reporter Hector Castro can be reached at 206-903-5396 or hectorcastro@seattlepi.com.
...but since I get paid I guess that makes me an underpaid whore.
I guess she hopes he is just shooting blanks.
or when feeling frisky goes bad
What you gonna do when they come for you.
Engaged to a cousin? Is this Seattle or West Virginia?
So the loving couple has a drunken fight in a restaurant, the guy knocks her down and then runs off, and the police officer who responds to the call seizes the opportunity to get some strange from a drunk chick with no self-esteem. Nobody to root for here, is there?
KNIGHT 1
When I think of the rollicking pleasures that earlier filled my life
Lolly lo, lolly lo
Like the time I beheaded a man who was beating his naked wife
Lolly lo, lolly lo
I can still hear his widow say
Never moving from where she lay
"Tell me what can I do, I beg, sir, of you,
Your kindness to repay"
ALL
Fie on goodness, fie
Fie on goodness, fie...
What off duty conduct, according to this, he left his shift early so he could get um well so he could um satisfy his needs. This is ridiculous that he only gets five days, this loon should be fired. I can't imagine leaving a shift early to get well um you know and not get fired for it especially if the person involved is someone I'm supposed to be protecting. Just when I thought I had heard it all.......
LOL, I want that job, too. The U.S. has largely abandoned physics research. I'm a programmer for a private company, now. On the upside, programmers get paid a lot more.
ROFLMAO
And another thing, what's this thing about Sting always showing up without his shirt on? Geez!
30-day suspension? This idiot needs to be fired.
well, it's obnoxious. And personally, I'd hop all over one of those motorcycle cops with their tight black pants tucked into their boots.
Boy howdy. A motorcycle cop could interrogate me anytime he wanted.
So the cop didn't even arrest the guy? Did he at least handcuff the girlfriend? ;)
A good name for a Panthers cheerleader, wouldn't you say?
(pant..pant) pull over.."
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