A pair of officers with Richmond Police Department could face disciplinary action after photos of them sleeping in a local cemetery surfaced on social media Saturday morning.
The original post was captioned, “Check out what we found this morning,” and includes five photos. The images show two individuals, both appearing to be in uniform, sleeping in the front seats of a Richmond police cruiser.
The images were shared to at least two Richmond Facebook groups before being deleted later, and the original post included a geotag indicating the images were taken at St. Andrews Cemetery, 1701 Liberty Avenue.
The car was parked along one of the cemetery’s roads when the photos were taken around 8 a.m. Saturday.
Richmond Police Chief Jim Branum told the Palladium-Item RPD plans to launch an internal investigation on the matter. He had only learned of the situation about 30 minutes before being contacted.
“Obviously, it’s not OK,” Branum said. “It’s certainly something that’s not encouraged. We’re aware of it and we’re going to launch an internal investigation and in all likelihood there’ll be some discipline.”
The post as of early Sunday morning had garnered dozens of comments and thousands of shares on Facebook.
Comments on the post were split between support for the officers, criticism of the person who posted the images and criticism of the officers or fear for their safety.
The original poster did not indicate in the original post whether she tried to wake up the officers, but stated in comments on the post that she saw the car parked with the engine running for more than two hours before she took the photos.
The author of the post declined to comment on the matter when messaged on Facebook by this newspaper, other than to reiterate that the individuals were both in police uniforms and each was asleep in the turned-on vehicle at the time the photos were taken.
Branum said the police department has a policy directing officers not to sleep while on the job.
“I think it’s common sense; I wouldn’t want to call for police action and have an officer sleeping somewhere,” Branum said. “And people with any other job would not be allowed to sleep while they’re working.”
Source: http://www.pal-item.com