Japanese police officer admits he was looking at porn on his phone while suspect escaped lockup

“To serve and protect” gets trumped by “to ogle and leer” as violent-crime suspect slips out of detention center.

Distracting guards with sexiness is one of the oldest cliches of fictional storytelling. Whether it’s a femme fatale from a group of thieves chatting up the security staff while her cohorts pull a diamond heist or super spy Solid Snake leaving bikini model magazines as diversions while he sneaks through a Metal Gear base, countless movies and video games have taught us that when you need to distract someone, all you need to do is give them some compelling eye candy.

Or, in the case of Junya Hida, all you have to do is wait for them to find some porn on their own.

Back on the night of August 12, the 30-year-old Hida, a rape and robbery suspect, was having a lengthy discussion with his lawyer at a police detention center in Osaka’s Tondabayashi neighborhood. No policemen were present in the room, and when the lawyer left the interview room, the door buzzer failed to sound, due to having no battery. The lawyer didn’t mention that he was leaving to any of the 20 or so officers on duty, either, and the unattended Hida used the opportunity to slip out of the building, going on the lam until he was finally caught again shoplifting food several prefectures over in Yamaguchi on September 29.

But even if no officers were in the interview room, someone should have been tasked with watching the door at least, right? Yep, and that duty, at the time, fell to a 40-something police sergeant. During a press conference following Hida’s recapture, the Osaka Prefectural Police said that the sergeant didn’t notice Hida’s escape because he had been looking at baseball news on his smartphone, in violation of procedures.

It turns out, though, that the sergeant hadn’t been captivated by bats and balls, but boobs and butts. Subsequent prodding by media organizations has led the Osaka police to admit that the sergeant had actually been staring at porn on his phone while Hida made a break for it.

As for why the Osaka police didn’t come clean about the dirty distraction in the first place, a spokesman said “Bringing a personal smartphone into the detention area itself is a procedural violation, and we felt that what specifically he was looking at was irrelevant.” That’s a sensible way of looking at things, but all the same, we’re glad the sergeant wasn’t looking at SoraNews24 when he screwed up.

It also should be noted that it’s not like there’s egg only on the sergeant’s presumably leering face, since over a dozen other officers dropped the ball by letting Hida get out of the building. In addition to the sergeant, six other officers have received disciplinary action including pay cuts, though at least the sergeant can take solace in the fact that in the Internet age, free pornography is pretty easy to find.

Source: TV Asahi News via Hachima Kiko, Asahi Shimbun Digital, Naver Matome
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso

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