Pornography, though prevalent in the modern world, still isn’t the sort of thing one expects to see while waiting in traffic behind a cop car. That’s especially true at the busiest downtown intersection of a wealthy Chicago suburb like Wheaton, Illinois, best known for being the home of an evangelical Christian college once attended by Billy Graham.
But pornography is exactly what an irate Wheaton resident named Robin said he witnessed. On the morning of September 18, 2013, while sitting in his conversion van and waiting for a stoplight to change, Robin found himself directly behind Wheaton Police squad car 359. The height of his seat gave him a perfect view through the rear windshield of the squad car, and he could see the car’s mobile data computer displaying “scrolling pictures of completely naked women.”
The light turned green, the cop turned onto Main Street, and Robin drove home to fume for more than a week. He refused to report the incident because he didn’t believe the police would actually investigate one of their own, but on September 27, after urging from his wife, he fired off an e-mail to Wheaton Mayor Mike Gresk. (Ars Technica acquired all relevant documents about the case from the city and the police department through a public records request.)
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