A Seattle police officer’s dashcam was unknowingly turned on for a whole shift. We watched the whole thing—a day in the life of a cop who hates his job—and reported back on the surprising things we saw and heard. This is one of our staffers’ favorite stories in 2016, and it’s republished below.
“Do you ever want to punch anybody in the face?”
Officer Salvatore Ditusa is sitting in his patrol car at Northgate Mall on June 18, 2014. He is on duty, meeting a friend in the parking lot.
“Like that guy?” the friend asks.
“No, fuck him,” Ditusa replies. “I mean everybody today… fucking everywhere you turn, someone needs a clout.”
“You get yourself in a lot of trouble,” the man warns the officer. “But it sure is tempting.”
Ditusa didn’t know that his patrol car’s dashboard camera was recording that conversation—it was a few minutes out of six hours of video showing Ditusa’s shift on the second watch at the North Precinct in the summer of 2014. The camera was self-starting, Ditusa later told investigators.
Over six hours, from 1:41 p.m. to 7:41 p.m., Ditusa complains about new training, insults a fellow officer with a homophobic slur, harasses a homeless guy, intimidates a signature gatherer, and suggests his sergeant steal police files from headquarters. But he doesn’t punch anybody.