The city of Nashville can’t hire police officers at a fast enough pace to replace the amount leaving the department every month, and often times the wait for an officer to respond is measured in hours, instead of minutes, to calls for service. While most new officers seem to be engaged and active, there are always exceptions that are just on board for a job with benefits, and aren’t really interested in being a police officer. As Nashville welcomes 29 new faces from the academy tonight, we take a look at recent graduate, who has spent his overnight shifts complaining about being bored, and finding women to snapchat.
Once such fairly new addition to the MNPD is Officer Wesley Carver. Officer Carver was recently assigned to a few weeks of overnights in Midtown, where he spent time many hours chatting with women on snapchat, asking for pen-pals on Facebook, and time after time, describing how boring his job as a police officer was while patrolling and learning the ropes as a fairly new officer, and he needed people to message him just so he could stay awake until the end of his shift.
Over an 8-week period this summer, we observed more than 5 hours per week of social media activity while on shift and on duty. Sometimes even telling people where he was patrolling, and some people laughing how they could find him asleep. While one hour per shift may not sound like much, on average, it turned into 46 hours over the course of 8 weeks that we were able to track his activity. We even created a snapchat account to see when he was responding while on duty. We asked Officer Carver to comment on this story, but he did not respond to our request. He did, however, remove a lot of the posts in question – however we had them archived prior to our inquiry.
All during this time, he was patrolling mostly in the Midtown area, and talking to everyone on multiple social media platforms about the boredom the night shift of MNPD brought to him, and frequently carried on in dept-conversations online while in the patrol car.
On June 10th, at 11:34 PM, Officer Carver posts:
“Who Up??? Finna bust a block”
Two days later, he realizes the apparently difficulty of staying awake overnight, and asks:
“So I’m on 3rd shift for 2 months any pen pals out there??? Please inbox me I’m not gonna make it
#helpme0630a“
Just after 1 AM, he tells folks he’s in midtown, while wondering if he can make it all night without someone to talk to, and a friend replies “Sounds like it’s ok to raise cane in midtown late at night since they will find you asleep”
Night after night for the next few weeks, his conversations began with “Who is up?”, Alright who is gonna talk to me tonight?”, or this 1 AM note: “Who up 2night??? Hmu”.
One morning at 2:38 AM, he reminds everyone “I’m on 3rd shift now….” in response to a comment of “Boy u is always up”, and they then have a public conversation about relationships while the officer is patrolling midtown, commenting on his patrol, and the blocks he’s on.
In late June, in an attempt to stay awake, he found a bar to “chill at”, posting:
“Was just chillin at a bar with Chris Young. Pretty chill dude.”
Near his last week of the overnight shift, he revealed lost in it all:
“I be bored at work and at home. Just lost”
On August 7th, his last week of his least favorite detail, he notes:
“My last week on 3rds, I need some company. Dont want you, just borrow you. SC names will suffice….
Please”. “Ladies only shit stain”
We’re not sure we would classify 46 hours of social media posting while on duty as ‘protecting and serving’ or being a ‘guardian of Nashville’ – but that’s what happened during one new officer’s 8-week overnight tour. Welcome to the MNPD.
MNPD has not responded to requests from this outlet in several days, since the publication of “Metro Police Officers & Firefighters took secret photos of & shamed a transgender citizen“
