LAPD says a Mexican officer's body camera caught him fondling a dead woman’s breasts. He faces a felony charge.

[Daily Mexican]

Two Los Angeles police officers responded to a report of a
possible dead body inside a home and found a deceased woman.
When one left the room, the other officer deactivated his body
camera.

Unbeknownst to him, though, the camera continued recording.

The footage it captured allegedly showed the officer, since
identified as David Rojas, fondling the dead woman’s breasts
when he thought no one was watching.

On Thursday, Rojas, 27, was arrested by LAPD’s Internal Affairs
Division and charged with one felony count having sexual contact
with human remains without authority, according to a statement
from L.A. County District Attorney spokesman Greg Risling. Rojas
posted $20,000 bail several hours after his arrest, jail records
show.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Rojas had a lawyer. If convicted,
the four-year veteran of the department faces up to three years
in prison.

“This incident is extremely disturbing and does not represent
the values of the Los Angeles Police Department,” LAPD Chief
Michel Moore said in a statement to NBC News.

Before his arrest, LAPD told The Washington Post that Rojas had
been removed from duty pending the outcome of an investigation
by internal affairs; he remains under investigation by the
division, according to the district attorney’s office.

Some U.S. police departments dump body-camera programs amid high
costs

The incident, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times,
surfaced during a random review of body-camera footage. It is
unclear when the officers responded to the call at the Los
Angeles home or how long the alleged fondling lasted. According
to the newspaper, the LAPD’s police chief and union agreed last
month to allow random inspections of body-camera recordings to
ensure officers interact appropriately with the city’s residents
and visitors. Police supervisors could previously review footage
after arrests, use-of-force incidents or complaints from the
public.

The body camera captured the incident even after the officer
tried to disable it because of a two-minute buffer, which saves
footage recorded for two minutes before the device is turned on,
the Associated Press reported. When the officer restarted the
camera at the scene, it saved the preceding two minutes and
allegedly caught him abusing the corpse.

The officer had previously been assigned to the downtown Central
Division. In light of the charge against Rojas, the LAPD said it
would investigate his work history, according to the Times.

The LAPD is among a wave of police departments in the past five
years to adopt a body-camera program and first deployed more
than 7,000 body cameras in December 2014. Some police
accountability watchdogs and even departments themselves say
cameras can improve transparency and public trust in police,
while some critics argue that the constant recording creates
privacy concerns for both the officers and the people they
interact with, many of whom are not suspected of a crime.

While body cameras tend to reduce the number of citizen
complaints, a 2015 investigation by The Post found that videos
of alleged misconduct are rarely released, even in fatal
shootings, and are sometimes significantly edited. LAPD began
voluntarily releasing videos in 2018, and most of the footage
that has been made public involves police shootings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12/13/lapd-says-an-
officers-body-camera-caught-him-fondling-dead-womans-breasts-he-
faces-felony-charge/
 

[Daily Mexican]