Judge Upholds Firing of Sergeant For Showing Cop Films During Shifts

Just before the weekend started, a judge upheld the firing of a West Chicago sergeant who was fired for inviting and allowing on-duty police officers on the overnight shift to watch cop movies and eat snacks instead of sending them out on their respective beats. The sergeant, Leonardo Aviles, was fired last year for violating twelve department regulations during the incidents which occurred in 2009.

This incident didn't happen just once - Aviles reportedly held two movie nights for officers in 2009. The police officers watched "Street Kings" one night and "Pride and Glory" the other. Although the representative for Aviles doesn't deny that the movie nights happened, he does think that everything was blown out of proportion:

In his defense, attorney Joseph Mazzone admitted that the movie nights had happened, but suggested that it wasn't as big a deal as Bond made it out to be.

And Mazzone further stated that the police officers were on still somewhat on-call:

"There is no argument that what happened, happened," Aviles' attorney Joseph Mazzone told DuPage Judge Terence Sheen. "It was a pretty good movie. But there were no calls missed and it was understood that all calls would have be responded to."

Aviles is a 19-year veteran in the police department, and records indicate that he's had three suspensions that were all related to off-duty activities.