Body Camera Allegedly Shows LAPD Officer Groping Dead Woman

LOS ANGELES, CA — A police body camera caught a veteran Los Angeles Police Department officer groping a dead woman, the LAPD said Tuesday. The officer has been placed on leave pending further investigation.

According to LAPD officials, footage of the officer fondling a dead woman's breasts was discovered during a random audit of officer body camera recordings. The body camera footage captured the officer responding, along with his partner, to a report of a possible dead woman in a residence, according to the Los Angeles Times.

According to authorities, the pair found the woman's body, and the groping occurred when the partner left to get something from a patrol car. The officer who stayed with the body allegedly turned off his body-worn camera and began fondling the woman's breasts, LAPD officials told the Times. However, the camera had an automatic buffer and saved video and audio recorded two minutes before reactivation.

The officer is with the LAPD's downtown-area Central Division.

"We are aware of it," Officer J. Chaves of the LAPD's Media Relations Section said about the case. "Because it is an administrative investigation, we cannot comment."

However, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the police union, had a lot to say about the incident.

“If this allegation is true, then the behavior exhibited by this officer is not only wrong but extremely disturbing and does not align with the values we, as police officers, hold dear, and these values include respect and reverence for the deceased,” the board of directors said in a statement to the Times. “This behavior has no place in law enforcement."

City News Service contributed to this report.