On Sept. 17, 2017, California Highway Patrol officer Nathaniel Partridge checked in his patrol car almost four hours before his shift ended and drove 35 miles home. That day, and on at least two other occasions, he was paid overtime for the hours he didn’t work.
Partridge wasn’t alone. Dozens of CHP officers at an East Los Angeles patrol division routinely did the same while working traffic enforcement details on highway construction sites. On paper, the practice had been forbidden for five years, but no one objected until a 2019 audit.
“I took the chance to go home and would fall on the consequence if I was called back,” Partridge told CHP investigators, according to court documents…