The Five Strangest Corrupt Cops

Corruption in law enforcement is not a new concept to most people in the modern world, in fact, it has gone on for a very long time. Whether it’s a cop abusing power, taking bribes, or taking advantage of their authoritative position, it happens. Here are five of the strangest corrupt cop stories we’ve heard of.

Italy’s Cops Can Be Bribed with Cheese

We unreservedly love cheese. Cheese is delicious. Cheese makes everything better, even other types of cheese. Cheese is our friend.

And, of course, Italy makes some absolutely great cheeses. So we can understand why people would want to steal the cheese, but we’re not really sure exactly why cops were hijacking shipments of cheese over in Italy. We just find ourselves confused.

What would happen is, the cops would pull over the delivery vans, and then face the driver with a choice; pay a hefty, exaggerated fine, or fork over some cheese. You’d think, since this is happening in Campagnia, Italy’s famous cheese making region, that said cheese would then go for sale on the black market, and yes, there is a black market for cheese, where do you think Whole Foods gets its selection? But instead apparently the cops were just eating it.
Yeah, they basically got busted and lost their jobs because they wanted a snack. Oh, the power of cheese.

Denver Cop Wants A “Liter-A” Cola

“Super Troopers” is not, despite its gritty tone and careful research, a documentary. Cops don’t actually play funny pranks on Jim Gaffigan, get in fistfights over jurisdictions, or generally act that awesome. But, apparently, they’re more than happy to threaten poor fast food employees who piss them off.

Look no further than Denver, where, tired of waiting for his McGriddle, an officer pulled a gun on a fast food jockey to make him hurry up. It’s not really clear what happened, except the McWage Slave did absolutely nothing to offend, threaten or otherwise merit the officer pointing a gun at him. Unless they were reenacting that scene from “Falling Down”, where somebody makes the mistake of denying Michael Douglas his breakfast.

Granted, we hate how slow the line can get at Mickey D’s ourselves, but we’ve never considered pulling a gun on an employee. Now, pulling a gun on the stoner who takes forever to read the menu and can’t make his order because he keeps dissolving into giggling fits? That guy gets a gun pulled on him.

They Call It Dope For A Reason

So, say you’re a police officer. You like to smoke the ganja occasionally. That’s OK, it’s not like you’re hurting anyone, but, of course, it is kind of a conflict of interest. So it’s probably smart not to smoke, say, while you’re on a vacation. In a van. That’s illegally parked. At a softball game with literally thousands of police officers in attendance.

Meet Honolulu’s finest, Kevin Fujioka and Shane Souza. As you might have guessed, they were enjoying some of Hawaii’s more beloved but less legal agricultural crop when, for no explicable reason, a whole bunch of police approached them after smelling weed coming out of an illegally parked van. Being smart and sensible fellows, they immediately tried to drive off, crashed their van, and then tried to run away. As the cops were not the ones stoned, they were caught pretty quickly.

To be fair, they should be held up as examples. See kids? This is why you don’t do drugs.

In Baltimore, Drug Dealers Bust Cops

William King and Antonio Murray had two problems: one, they lived in Baltimore, which exists to make Detroit feel better about itself. Two, they were police officers in Baltimore, so their jobs were, of course, absolutely terrible. King and Murray decided to moonlight on the side, just to make a little extra money. Which is how they became drug dealers.

King and Murray actually had a pretty smart plan: beat up the drug dealers, steal their drugs, and then resell the drugs. Well, pretty smart in the sense that they didn’t have to pay for the drugs, just the post-beating beers. But it was pretty stupid in the sense that they didn’t bother to hide their identities to the point where they were actually featured in the Stop Snitchin‘ DVD as examples of corrupt cops. After the Baltimore Police Department realized they had some movie star in their midst, King and Murray were arrested.
If this sounds a bit like some characters from The Wire…perish the thought.

Andre Stander Robs Banks on His Lunch Break

Andre Stander started out as a good cop, but being a good cop in ’70s South Africa is just a little hard to do. Stuck on a racist police force with no hope of advancement since he wouldn’t go around beating up black people for the crime of existing, Stander needed a hobby to blow off steam.

So he started robbing banks on his lunch break. And he did it for three years.
The basic problem was, while most of South Africa’s police were off bolstering the country’s sterling reputation for race relations, most of Johannesburg was essentially left unguarded. Stander, being a master of disguise, could knock over a bank, go back to work from lunch, come back to the bank as a police officer, interview the cashier he robbed, and nobody would realize he’d been the one to do it. In other words, he was a one-man crime wave and he did it on his lunch break.

Oh, and then later on, he broke out, formed a gang, and robbed up to four banks a day, even coming back and robbing a bank that had made the mistake of announcing he hadn’t gotten at the real vault. And later got a biopic starring Thomas Jane. So, basically, he’s the most awesome corrupt cop ever. ( Link )