Pager duty?

The City of Austin is paying a police officer – not just any police officer, but one of Art Acevedo’s fired/reinstated by an arbitrator officers – $98,000 a year.

Now, $98,000 a year is good money, especially in Austin. “But,” you may say to yourself, “I don’t want to get shot at, even for $98,000 a year.”

No worries, mate.

Police Chief Art Acevedo forbade Torres to wear his uniform publicly or take any police action and put the 24-year department veteran on what some fellow officers call $98,000-a-year “basement duty,” in charge of distributing digital pagers to other officers from the bottom floor of police headquarters.

Interestingly, the whole thing appears to stem from a domestic dispute:

Torres’ wife told investigators she found a camera that had pictures of Torres and another woman in bed together. She refused to return the camera, prompting a struggle that left her with bruises on her arms and legs. Torres denied that he hurt his wife, the memo said.

Deputies in Williamson County, where Torres lives, initially charged him with a Class A misdemeanor, but Torres later pleaded guilty to Class C assault by contact and was fined $100, records show.

Correct me if I’m wrong, someone, but doesn’t the fact that he was convicted of a crime of domestic violence mean that he can’t own or carry a gun in any case?

2 Responses to “Pager duty?”

  1. Joe D says:

    I’ll do that same job for $80K and save the taxpayers some money.

  2. Earl Cooley III says:

    I’d do it for $65K, but my needs are relatively simple.