Then sending the videos to his own phone.
Colonial Heights cop Bryan Glinn Drake, 30,transferred short videos from the phones of a suspect and his girlfriend he arrested on drug charges in March.
A lawyer for the arrested suspect stated that during the arrest Drake searched through the phone and found the videos, which were “short but of an explicit nature.”
The videos were taken by the girlfriend of the suspect Drake arrested.
The downloads were discovered later on June 7th after the suspect was released from jail and checked his iCloud account.
That’s when he noticed three videos had been sent from his phone to a number he didn’t recognize and that the videos were transferred to the phone while he was still in jail.
After his defense attorneys investigated, they learned the number belonged to Drake.
Colonial Heights police launched an internal affairs investigation 12 hours later, which resulted in Drake being suspended and placed on paid leave.
“It is absolutely not the expectation,” Colonial Heights Police Chief William Anspach said.
“We’re just not going to stand for this kind of behavior.”
After being suspended, Drake never returned to work and effectively resigned, which means he could be hired in another jurisdiction since he wasn’t technically fired.
“In Virginia, you cannot lose your certificate that allows you to be a law enforcement officer for misconduct like this…In this case, even though I hear that the officer has resigned, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t become an officer in another jurisdiction,” Claire Gastanaga with the ACLU said.
Currently, the ACLU in Virginia is pushing for statewide legislation that would strip an officer’s ability to apply with another department after being found guilty of misconduct on the job, according to [WWBT](http://www.nbc12.com/story/36999926/police-former-officer-arrested-for-stealing-videos-from-suspects-phone “WWBT”).
Drake, who worked for the Colony Heights Police Department for two years, is now charged on three counts of obstruction of justice and three counts of misdemeanor embezzlement.
He’s scheduled to appear in court in February.
