Officer working at Walmart runs woman’s plates to follow her on Instagram, police say
A police officer in Connecticut was arrested following an accusation that he illegally accessed a law enforcement database for his personal benefit.
The officer, a 30-year-old man, was working security at a Walmart in Old Saybrook, about 50 miles south of Hartford, on Black Friday, Nov. 25, according to an arrest warrant.
After purchasing a TV and leaving the store, a 21-year-old woman noticed the officer leaning against a post near the exit, police said.
At about the same time, the officer texted a dispatcher “Bro I am gaming right now,” which is a commonly used phrase for aiming to pick up women, police said.
Less than a minute later, he sent the woman’s license plate number to a police dispatcher, asking for the name of the owner, according to police. He did not provide a “legitimate law enforcement reason to run this registration plate,” police said.
An attorney for the officer could not be reached by McClatchy News for comment.
Later that same day, the woman received a notification on Instagram that the officer had started following her, police said.
“I saw that the guy kind of looked familiar and it looked like the Saybrook cop from Walmart,” she said, according to police.
She later confirmed through a mutual follower that he was the same police officer she’d seen earlier, police said.
“It was clear to me that he got my name by running my plate,” she said. “If he just asked me I would have given it to him.”
The officer later said he ran the plates because the woman appeared “suspicious,” police said.
“I had no intent on running the plate to figure out who [she was],” the officer told authorities, according to the arrest warrant.
He added that he only followed her on social media afterward because he noticed they had mutual friends, including his ex-wife, police said.
The Old Saybrook Police Department opened a criminal investigation into the matter and placed the officer, who had been with the department since 2017, on administrative leave, according to a police press release.
He was arrested Wednesday, Dec. 14, and has been charged with a computer crime, according to the release. He was released on bond and is scheduled to appear in court Dec. 27, 2022.
“Old Saybrook Citizens must be assured that they can trust their Police Department,” Michael Spera, chief of police, stated in the release, adding that the law and workplace expectations should be taken “very seriously.”
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