Cop Under Investigation For Dunkin' Donuts Pilfering

Defying the tired old cliche about cops loving their carrots and wheatgrass, a Brooklyn police sergeant is under investigation for loading up on donuts without paying at a Belle Harbor Dunkin' Donuts. A manager at the location called the cops on Sgt. Eric Turetsky after getting fed up with his behavior, which he claims included flirting with the adolescent workers and habitually underpaying for his donuts. The manager, who for obvious reasons asked not to be identified, tells the Post, "The girls here couldn't stand him. He was rude toward them. He was not professional at all." After reporting Turetsky, Internal Affairs watched him go into the store on seven different occasions, and on each of those trips he allegedly went behind the counter to help himself to the donuts. Turetsky, who was promoted to detective after blowing the whistle on fellow officer Justin Volpe in the infamous Abner Louima bathroom sodomy scandal, is currently assigned to the 100th Precinct in the Rockaways. If found guilty of accepting free or discount donuts, Turtetsky could lose 30 days of vacation time!

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By John Del Signore in News on July 20, 2009 9:20 AM

Comments [rss]

nyorker555

Snoopy is right -- the cop was doing something else more serious wrong and we arent getting all the info in the news. This is just the first internal step towards getting him fired, I suspect.

NannyState

He'll be Officer Of The Year soon...from rounding up all the Timmy Ho's.

Snoopy

I'm sure the price of a cup of coffee and a donut or two is not the reason the owner said, "Enough already."

I would love to see what Internal Affairs has to say about this. But of course they will never release any info to the public. "We do not release information on an ongoing investigation." blah blah blah

KiljoyWasHere

30 days is a lot of vacation. At 2 weeks per year that would mean no vacation for 3 years?

just saying

Where have you been? Cops get a lot more than 2 weeks a year vacation. Just go the the NYPD website and see what they get--as well as the salary. It's an eye opener, I tell ya.

KiljoyWasHere

I was just being snarky, but then did the research.

A cop with 5.5 years is making over 90k with over a month's worth of vacation a year. Wow.

resa

Isn't that 90k WITH overtime? 90k can't be their base salary, otherwise I'd have become a cop. 90k, a months vacation and free donuts?

KiljoyWasHere

Base and benefits. NOT overtime.

longacre

This seems to be a costly business decision. Given the propensity of such establishments to be victims of robberies, violent bums, etc, "ethical violations" aside, I wouldn't have a problem handing over some free donuts and coffee to the coppers. And it's not against the law to flirt with cashiers. I wouldn't be surprised if all their paying cop customers drove out of their way to avoid this location from now on.

Spirit of 76

So you would prefer a protection racket instead? Nice little shop ya got here. You wouldn't want nothin' to happen to your Munchkins, would you?

what_a_dick

dick!

SC

The Post article (and Gothamist post) seem to be missing a point, I think.

It says if he's guilty of accepting discounts (which is technically against department policy, but laughably enforced), then he faces the vacation time sanction.

But I would think that applies to, you know, willing discounts. If a store manager offers you free donuts and you take them, that's an ethical violation befitting that punishment. But if you're just taking them without permission, that's petty theft, outright. There's gotta be a harsher punishment for that...

... right?

Not that it would be enforced... just sayin'.

valeriob

I just want to be clear about this new interpretation of the law...

Stealing donuts is not illegal but you will lose 1/10th of your vacation days for excessive stealing.

I will now go apply these new rules with this awesome cop's precedence to back me up. Thanks!

hotstepper

this is all so very, very shocking, i just don't know where to begin...

streber

Wait, this cop was essentially stealing.

But, no criminal charges?

Put this guy behind bars, he's a criminal.

Munching on free donuts in rockaway IS a vacation.