Armed and drunk: Off-duty cops get into trouble drinking. LAPD rules fail to prevent it
Early one morning last month, off-duty Los Angeles police Officer Nicolas Quintanilla-Borja allegedly threatened to kill his cousin and another man with a handgun in Inglewood before being arrested by local police, prosecutors said.
Days later, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the civilian Police Commission that the incident troubled him “a great deal,” in part because Quintanilla-Borja — a probationary officer with less than 18 months on the force — was allegedly “significantly” impaired by alcohol at the time.
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The LAPD has been struggling for years with how to deal with alcohol use by armed, off-duty officers, failing to develop clear policies despite a series of problems, The Times found. Other departments across the country have robust rules for carrying firearms while drinking alcohol or when intoxicated, but the LAPD’s rules remain vague even as serious cases pile up.
In a 2019 incident that resurfaced in state court in April, an LAPD detective who’d been drinking with subordinates for hours in downtown bars allegedly shot a homeless man on skid row before being badly beaten himself. The officer claimed self-defense.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-04/lapd-policy-mum-armed-off-duty-officers-drinking-alcohol