The Philadelphia Police Department is investigating a video that apparently shows a police officer selling tickets to a police fundraiser — and making homosexual slurs.
"Either you buy these, or I take your car, because it's unregistered," the officer, identified as Officer Charles Zagursky, 32, says in the video.
The driver, identified on Facebook as Rob Stay Faded, buys the tickets as the officer encourages him to buy more, telling the men in the car they should avoid looking like "fruitcakes."
"You got any kids," the cop says. "You got any sweetheart?"
In a second video, Zagursky commented on the driver's pink windshield wipers, asking, "What's up with the f----t-ass wipers?"
Related: Acquitted cops back on the force.
Commissioner Charles Ramsey told Metro he saw the video at 8 a.m. But a member of the command staff saw it Thursday and immediately stripped Zagursky of his badge and his gun.
The 9-year veteran, assigned to the 24th District, was placed on desk duty pending investigation.
"There's no excuse for his conduct at all," Ramsey said. "There's nothing good I can say."
Ramsey said the Hero thrill show is a worthy charity that raises money for the families of fallen officers and firefighters.
"This guy has tainted that. We don't pressure people to buy tickets. We don't even pressure people internally to buy tickets, which I'm told is something that used to happen."
Metro has reached out to the poster to determine where and when the video was made, and whether it was some sort of misguided hoax.
Ramsey said he believes the video to be real, especially because of the recorded anti-gay reamarks.
"I don't think this was staged," the commissioner said.
The videos were taken down from the poster's Facebook page overnight. The apparent shakedown video was available Saturday through another Facebook user.
The tickets, which sold for $10 each go toward the Hero Thrill Show, which raises money to pay college tuition of the children of police and firefighters who were killed in the line of duty.
Related: Former Philly Narcotics officer who failed drug test is retired, getting pension.
The Hero Thrill Show was last in the news earlier this year when James Binns, who represented one of six narcotics officers acquitted in a federal corruption trial, claimed the cops would be the parade's grand marshalls.
Binns, who is also the show's chairman and CEO, later backed away from those statements.
Reached for comment Friday, Binns said he is unaware of the video, but he said officers are under "no pressure to sell" the tickets.
The show is scheduled for Aug. 10.
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