What a Moron!
A Georgetown Police officer was indefinitely suspended Friday for pulling a dangerous prank with a colleague's gun.
Officer George Bermudez had been in trouble before. In April 2014, he was caught on video tripping, kicking and pushing Georgetown High School students as they rushed a soccer field following their team's victory in a state championship. He was suspended for 40 days.
Now Bermudez is accused of tampering with the sights of a fellow officer's duty rifle as a joke, according to an investigation by the Georgetown Police Department.
The report said Bermudez was at a Georgetown shooting range on Feb. 2, 2015 with other officers, including Officer David Lanier. Lanier left the range early, forgot his rifle, called Bermudez and asked him to pick it up.
Bermudez grabbed the rifle, denying other officer's offers to bring it to Lanier themselves, and took it to a Guns Plus gun store, where he discussed altering the weapon with store clerks "to teach him a lesson not to leave his [expletive] laying around."
"You brought Officer Lanier's duty rifle into the civilian gun shop, discussed the rifle with employees including tampering with the rifle, and allowed Guns Plus personnel to put their hands on the weapon, inspect it and manipulate the weapon's components," said the report, addressed to Bermudez.
Bermudez even texted a photo of a store clerk handling the rifle to Lanier, "which caused him great concern as to why you were allowing others to handle his duty weapon."
Store staff moved the gun's sights out of line, 12 clicks left and 12 clicks down. The next day, Bermudez returned the rifle, but never mentioned the sights had been changed.
Lanier worked two shifts with the manipulated gun. He worked the night shift on February 3, and responded to a gun call for which he unlocked his rifle and removed if from the mount, but did not have to use it.
On February 4, Bermudez told Lanier to check his rifle sights. Lanier asked if he was serious. He said he was.
"Officer Lanier immediately retrieved his duty rifle and discovered that both the red dot optics and rear iron sights had been tampered with and were 'way' off," the report said.
Bermudez told Lanier he had personally changed the sights, but did not mention the gun store.
Lanier caused concern when he relayed the story to superiors. An investigation began. Bermudez said he thought the department was overreacting.
Over the course of the months-long investigation that included interviews with several officers, the Guns Plus staff and a friend of Bermudez, the now-terminated officer gave conflicting testimony and lied on multiple occasions.
At the start, a police investigator asked Bermudez if his answers would stand up to a polygraph lie-detector test. He answered, "yeah, but I'll tell you right now I suck at polygraphs." The investigator reminded him he passed one to get his job.
Bermudez was asked if he or someone else changed the sights on Lanier's rifle. He said no twice. He failed two polygraph tests.
The report concluded, "Your actions are sincerely disappointing. You have breached my trust in your abilities to meet the expectations of a Georgetown Police Officer. You have breached the trust of your fellow officers. You have placed officers and our community at unnecessary risk as a result of your poor decisions. You have demonstrated the inability to provide truthful answers during this investigative process. Your actions demonstrate an ongoing pattern of poor decision making that is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. For these reasons, the only acceptable outcome is your indefinite suspension from the Georgetown Police Department."
