'I Saw a Shiny Thing': Cop Explains Why He Used License Plate Reader to Stalk Woman

In Moeller’s police station interview with Roman, he admits to “hitting on” and “flirting” with the victim on the Bad Monkey set—“she was kind of teasing,” he said. (The victim told Moeller that she was deeply uncomfortable the whole time, and that he was harassing her.) Roman says after he met her he looked her up in DAVID and MNI, another police database, which he knew was illegal: “Right when I did that, I was like, ‘fuck, what did I do?,’” he says. 

“When you pulled her over, did you know it was her?,” Moeller asks him. 

“Yes,” he says.

“Did you have a legal reason to pull her over?” Moeller says. 

“No,” he says.

When asked what his “goal” with the hotlist was, Roman says “I think just meeting someone like that, getting the high from it. She was leading on. It was one of those things where, she was kind of pushing it.”

Later in the interview, another cop walks into the room and sits out of camera shot and tells Roman to “not let it get to you,” and said “of all the people I expected to be sitting down with here, it wasn’t you. I thought you were pretty good out there, so I wasn’t expecting this. It caught me off guard by a long shot. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone has their own issues no matter who they are.” 

Before the interview ends, Roman says to Moeller and the other officer, “I just apologize for you guys having to do this. I mean, I saw a shiny thing, teasing and all that. I knew that when I put that [into the system], I was like ‘Fuck,’ and I stopped right after and nothing else.”

Doesn’t even view women as human beings.

“I saw a shiny thing”

The vast majority of the police force is the bottom 10% of your graduating high school class. These people are fucking morons.

"i SaW a ShInY!!"

What's rape culture tho?

Police have been using public resources for stalking long before ALPR’s existed. At least there are bread crumbs so idiots like this get caught.

ACAB.