GRIFFIN, Ga. -- Police body cameras recorded an officer telling a citizen to “suck my d***” during an otherwise-calm custody dispute.
Officer Travis Wick resigned from the Griffin Police Department after begging Police Chief Mike Yates not to fire him.
Officer Wick was one of two officers responding to a call for help from Andrew Orahoske, who is locked in a custody fight for his daughter. The Griffin officers told Orahoske that they could not take the girl from her mother without a signed order by a judge.
porch 3shot_1540588513101.png.jpg
The August 26 exchange, caught on both officers’ body cameras, was relatively routine until Officer Wick asked Orahoske for his first name. “I’m not gonna give you none of my information now, because I don’t want to get in trouble tonight,” the father said.
That’s when Officer Wick responded, “well you can suck my d**k!”
The situation quickly escalated in response to the officer’s profane outburst. The official police report suggests the citizens were responsible, and made no mention of Officer Wick’s euphemistic demand for oral sex.
The citizens “seemed to become irritated that the police couldn't help them, and became uncooperative at which point they requested a supervisor to the scene,” according to the police report.
After a heated argument with the citizens, Officer Wick turned to leave. That’s when a female friend sitting next to Orahoske said, “We’re trying to get a child back, and you told us to suck your d****!”
Officer Wick turned back and responded, “No, I didn't ask you. I asked him,” referring to Orahoske.
The officer’s body camera was still recording in his patrol car. Officer Wick called a lieutenant on his cell phone and said, “and he’s like, ‘well just never mind, I’m not going to give you my information.’ And I told him, ‘well you can suck my d***!’ And they flipped out.”
“I f***ed up,” the officer told his lieutenant.
Watch | Video of the entire encounter UNCENSORED
Officer Wick then lit up a cigarette in his patrol car and drove to back to Griffin Police headquarters to face the consequences.
“You made a pretty darn stupid remark,” Chief Yates told Officer Wick during an August 29 disciplinary meeting. Officer Wick replied, “I just said it. I don’t know why. I don’t. I mean that’s it, chief. It was f****** stupid, man.”
The police chief agreed, but worried how this incident would look to outsiders. Chief Yates asked Officer Wick, “if you got involved in a...use of deadly force, and then somebody got that video and played it, how do you think that would play out? If were sitting in federal court or before some grand jury or something like that?”
Chief_1540590738900.png
Officer Wick responded,“I apologize chief. I don’t know why that happened. I don’t know what set me off.” Chief Yates asked again, “is that what we’re gonna tell the grand jury?”
“Or (news channels) 2, 5, or 11,” Captain Michael Natale added.
Officer Wick begged for his job, saying “please don’t fire me chief” four times in a row. “I’m a good officer, chief,” he added.
Audio Track _1540588430899.png.jpg
Chief Yates brought up Wick’s previous employer, The Locust Grove Police Department. “If that was just a one-time thing,” the chief said, “and it just popped out of nowhere because you were having a bad day and your dog just died, that would be one thing. But on the tail end of you being hired after you got fired from Locust Grove…”
Personnel records show Officer Wick resigned voluntarily from the Locust Grove Police Department in 2008. His resignation followed an internal review of an alcohol-related incident on duty.
Internal memos show Officer Wick called in sick the day he was supposed to be returning from vacation because he was drinking. The police review concluded Officer Wick showed up to court smelling of alcohol.
The records indicate Officer Wick had a blood alcohol concentration of .036 percent right before he was scheduled to testify in court.
Locust Grove officials still strongly recommended that Griffin Police hire the officer in 2009.
While we were interviewing Andrew Orahoske on his front porch, he received a call from Griffin Police investigators. He told a police commander, “Chad called me last night and offered me a steak dinner to drop the charges.”
He was talking about Officer Chad Moxon.
Orahoske reported to Griffin Police Internal Affairs that Moxon had called him with an offer to drop the complaint against his friend, Officer Travis Wick.
Officer Moxon is currently with the Roberta Police Department, but he was a Griffin officer until 2015.
Moxon’s police officer certification is currently on probation, according to records provided by the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council. Moxon agreed to the probation amid a POST investigation into his 2014 DUI arrest.
A Pike County deputy sheriff pulled over Moxon after his motorcycle was seen speeding at 95 to 100 miles per hour through the county.
Comments
Post a Comment