More NB police officers hoping to be suspended with pay

New Brunswick — After the recent upswing in police suspensions in New Brunswick, The Manatee decided to go straight to the source and find out why so many officers are “breaking bad,” so to speak; it seems that, noticing their partners’ luck, active police and RCMP officers are admitting that they’d really like to be suspended with pay, too.

“It’s almost xmas, u know. I’d love to have some more time off,” wrote Const. Harry Smith, texting us from a Tims drive-thru in Saint John. “I’m not even done my shopping yet and I rly don’t want to be hanging out at the mall on the 24^th — what a zoo! ROFL!”

In Woodstock, 4 RCMP officers were suspended with pay for what is being called “discreditable conduct”; other cops are wondering just how discreditable their own behaviour needs to be for them to be sent home with pay as well.

“I heard all they did was make some prank phone calls to a local old folks’ home,” said one cop who wished to remain anonymous. “I’ve done far worse, but I can’t seem to get into the kind of trouble it takes to be sent home to relax, kick back with a beer and get paid for it.

“I know another Fredericton constable landed herself in court when she was caught stealing $20 worth of makeup, but I don’t want to be wasting time in the courthouse when I could go straight to MY house,” he added. “I need a middle-of-the-road type of infraction. Like, what exactly does it take?!”

“It’s kind of like when you’re a kid in school: you break the rules and you get detention,” explain Det. Jake Thompkins. “That totally sucks, but then if you do something even worse, you get sent home to play video games and think about what you’ve done. That’s way, way better, clearly.”

The Manatee submitted RTI requests to the New Brunswick RCMP head office and several city police headquarters asking for the complete list of infractions that will get police officers suspended with pay. The following are some sure-fire ways for cops to get paid to do nothing:

• drunk driving
• stoned driving
• speaking ill of the Irvings and/or reading satirical articles about the Irvings
• still using an ex’s Netflix account
• using excessive force (on white people)
• texting in the Tim Hortons drive-thru and/or failing to bring a box of Timbits back to the station
• running a red light
• getting stuck in the Fredericton roundabout
• not participating in the office’s charity fun-run and/or team weight-loss incentive
• ticketing fewer than 50 traffic violators while on daily patrol
• failing to complete the required number of hours in high schools as “resource officers”
• driving around with unbuckled pets in cop cars