An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was arrested Thursday on charges related to allegedly violating a corpse earlier this year.
On Oct. 20, David Rojas and his partner responded to a call reporting that a woman had died, according to a Thursday statement from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.
While he was alone in the room with the corpse as his partner returned to their squad car, he allegedly touched the woman’s breast.
{mosads}Rojas was released Thursday on a $20,000 bail, NBC News reported. If convicted, he faces a possible maximum sentence of three years in prison.
Rojas was placed on leave last week after he apparently attempted to deactivate his body camera but was still caught on video due to a delay between the deactivation and when the device actually turns off.
“We immediately launched an administrative investigation once we learned about the incident,” LAPD chief spokesman Josh Rubenstein told the L.A. Times last week, “and we assigned the officer to home.”
The board of directors for the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the police officers’ union, said Rojas’s alleged acts were “vile.”
“We hope that District Attorney Jackie Lacey charging Mr. Rojas for his vile alleged crime will bring some solace to the deceased woman’s family during their time of grieving,” the board said in a statement, NBC News reported.
“The Los Angeles Police Protective League will not defend Mr. Rojas during his criminal proceedings,” it continued, “and his alleged behavior is abhorrent and an affront to every law enforcement professional working for the LAPD.”