A Los Angeles police officer is under investigation after being accused of stealing more than $700 from an unlocked Tesla while responding to a call for service last week, according to an LAPD official familiar with the case.
The official, who had been briefed on the case and requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly, said the officer was seen going in and out of the vehicle in video footage.
Sometime later, the Tesla’s owner went to a police station where the officer worked to report the missing cash, according to the official. An LAPD supervisor reviewed the video footage, which showed the officer rifling through the vehicle for no apparent reason, the official said. The officer had switched off his body-worn camera before doing so, according to the official.
When confronted by his higher-ups, the officer admitted to removing the cash from the vehicle, but said he did so with the intention of booking it as evidence and had simply forgotten to do so. The officer, who works on the city’s south end but has not been identified publicly, has been placed on administrative leave amid the internal investigation.
An LAPD spokesperson said that the department couldn’t comment on a personnel matter.
The alleged theft occurred sometime last week on the city’s south end, according to the official briefed on the matter. Word has spread among the department after the allegations were mentioned on a pro-law enforcement Instagram account popular among rank-and-file LAPD officers.
According to the official briefed on the investigation, the accused officer had been working an overtime detail with the department’s Transit Services Division and had responded to a call for service with his partner.
At some point, while his partner was taking a report, the officer was seen on security video opening the door of a Tesla parked nearby and leaning inside on at least two occasions, the LAPD official said. When officials tried to review footage of the encounter from the officer’s body camera, they realized that he had stopped recording before he entered the vehicle.
Since rolling out the tiny recording devices in 2015, the city has spent millions both on the cameras themselves and data storage for the digital files.
But the department has struggled to keep tabs on whether officers are breaking the rules by turning off their cameras during public encounters. LAPD leaders have suggested using AI to review body-cam videos, most of which go unwatched.
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