Watch out for “Badge Bunnies” They can ruin your career
There are only a couple of things that we can say we know for sure. Frequently we invent sayings to convey these truths. One would be “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” There’s another saying having to do with law enforcement that’s also irrefutable- the job will get you tail but the tail will get your job. According to a recent report from WFTV in Florida, Ocoee Police Officer Shaun Whiting has been forced to resign after it was revealed that he’d set a system with a woman he was involved with sexually where she would call 911 and he would come meet her.
The married cop resigned after the scandal broke in the media. Whiting is a decorated four-year veteran of the force with two school-age children.
According to investigators he got into trouble when he developed a creative system for rendezvous with a woman he’d met on a police call.
The woman’s married too.
Whiting and the woman allegedly met on a call for service at a grocery store. The report says the two began exchanging emails and started talking. The woman later told officers looking into the matter that she would book hotel rooms and Whiting would meet her for sex while he was on duty.
The way it was supposed to work was the woman would call 911 and Whiting would answer the call alone.
But because Whiting had to be accounted for, the woman claimed he told her to call 911 and hang up. The investigators’ report shows the officer was then dispatched to the hotel.
And here’s an odd aspect to this story – the woman requested a ride-along with Whitiing, and the department approved it. Investigators said the two rode around together before heading back to the police substation. There the woman performed a sex act on Whiting during work hours while he was in uniform.
It’s not hard to see where Whiting’s plan got screwed up. Whiting’s on-duty love interest was also married. Her husband reportedly spilled the beans to internal affairs investigators. Here’s the best part- Whiting quit last summer in order to to avoid the affair becoming public.
But several high-profile sex scandals involving Florida law enforcement personnel led to Florida’s top police watchdog, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to start an investigation of its own.
That’s how the story wound up in the papers.
FDLE investigators depending on the outcome of their investigation could revoke Whiting’s law enforcement certification, effectively ending any hopes of him ever working as a cop again.