Videos posted to Facebook show a uniformed San Francisco police officer asleep in the driver's seat of his parked patrol car with the windshield wipers on.
The videos, posted March 3 by Gregory Little, show the officer snoozing as Little says: “Taxpayer money at work.”
In other videos, Little shows that the No. 226 squad car has its engine running while the officer continues to doze with his mouth wide open.
From the footage, The Standard was able to identify the location of the incident as Jones Street, close to the Tenderloin police station on Eddy Street.
The Standard wasn't able to identify the officer, and the San Francisco Police Department would not name him when contacted.
“SFPD is aware of the incident, which is being looked into and is a personnel matter,” said a department spokesperson. The SF Police Officers Association declined to comment on the matter.
Little was contacted for comment via Facebook and phone but did not respond.
The Standard was not able to find out when the videos were filmed but from the footage it was during daylight hours.
The video surfaced amid a frantic debate over a police staffing crisis and recently approved $25 million overtime bump from the Mayor’s Office.
San Francisco‘s Police Department currently has just over 1,500 officers, but city officials say adequate staffing would be closer to 2,100.
Mayor London Breed has called for millions in overtime funding to keep officers on patrol, which has been met with mixed reactions from the Board of Supervisors, but was ultimately approved in a Tuesday meeting on a 9-2 vote. The Mayor’s Office has been contacted for comment.
Supervisor Dean Preston, who represents the Tenderloin and voted against the overtime fund increase he dubbed a “bailout,” did not respond to requests for comment.