Miami-Dade Police Officers Fired For Slacking On The Job

The officers were caught on surveillance video kissing significant others, shopping and drinking coffee, all the while covering their tracks of not responding to emergency calls or pretending to be on calls when they weren’t by falsifying police records, CBS4 reports.

One sergeant and two officers of Platoon III, Squad A, have been fired, while others have been suspended without pay.

Though the police department’s internal affairs began investigating the squad in 2010, they were ultimately not disciplined until September 2012. CBS4 News reported in 2010 that the officers had incurred 134 violations of departmental rules and procedures.

According to the Daily Mail, the incidents are being considered the worst acts of delinquency in the department’s history.

One of the worst offenders was Dario Socarras, who has been fired. He ignored an emergency call about an unconscious five-month-old baby for nine minutes as he drank coffee.

Socarras was also caught on video ignoring armed robbery and residential burglary calls in order to meet his girlfriend.

Another fired officer, Sgt. Jennifer Gonzalez, was caught on video shopping at Target and Lowes while on duty. She was also captured spending time with her boyfriend and visiting her parents when she should have been working.

Jose Huerta, the third fired officer, was discovered to have not responded to a call about a 5-year-old child locked inside a vehicle.

On several occasions, he was found to have claimed to be on a call when he was in fact free to respond as well as not calling in crimes in order to avoid filling out paperwork.

“We’re talking about falsification of official records, stealing time that doesn’t belong to you, because they are supposed to be available for service or duty and they are not,” former Miami Police Chief Ken Harms told CBS4’s Jim DeFede.

According to the TV station, all three officers are attempting to get their jobs back.