OPA-LOCKA, Fla. – An Opa-locka police sergeant notorious for repeatedly getting fired and then getting his job back is off the force once again. Now there’s bodycam video that reportedly shows the reason why German Bosque has been fired for the seventh time. What he did, according to City Hall, was conspire to cover up for an officer who had a gun stolen while he was supposed to be guarding it.
But Bosque’s attorney said it isn’t what it seems.
The exchange on the video goes this way:
Bosque “What do we tell them you went to get in the car?”
Officer: “I went to check the call log and see if we could pull a case number.”
Bosque: “No, something else. Anything else? You thought it was going to rain and you came to get a tarp. . . You were going to cover it with a tarp or something; you didn’t want it to get wet.”
Does Bosque want it to be another story? The back and forth with Bosque and the officer is considered conspiracy to cover for a cop.
“It’s someone failing to want to take accountability for one’s actions,” said Opa-locka’s city manager John Pate, who points to Bosque’s record of six previous terminations.
Bosque was found guilty of false imprisonment and tampering in 2014. Bosque was also facing a charge of battery, but he was found not guilty on that count.
Korey Davis claimed Bosque punched him in the face while he was holding his 14-month-old baby in April 2011 and placed him in a holding area against his will when he went to the police station to file a report against Bosque.
At the time of his 2014 conviction, Bosque had been arrested, disciplined, suspended, fined and sent home with pay more than any officer in Florida. He has been accused of slamming the head of a handcuffed suspect, beating juveniles, hiding drugs in his police car, stealing from suspects, defying orders and falsifying police reports.
Bosque’s union attorney, Andrew Axelrad, said the video of the latest incident isn’t what it seems.
“The reality is, there was no order to falsify anything. There was no order to not tell the truth. At the end of the day, he is just completely shocked that this could possibly happen and he’s saying ‘No, there had to be a different reason — there has to be a good reason for this,’ ” Axelrad said.
At the house where it happened last October, the owner showed Local 10 News where she found the gun in her yard — the same gun that the officer should have been keeping an eye on for pick up.
She said she saw her neighbor come and take the gun and put in its place a pellet gun. She even has the switch on cellphone video.
It’s not the crime, however, it is the perceived cover up that lost Bosque his badge for the seventh time.
Bosque will fight his termination and Axelrad said he believes that Bosque will get his job back.
As for the officer who had the gun stolen on his watch, he faces reprimand.