“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…