TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. - Quebec provincial police have opened an internal investigation to the case of their sleeping policemen.
Motorist Maxime Carpentier used his cellphone to record two male officers snoozing in the front seat of their car on a major highway in Trois-Rivieres, east of Montreal, this week. Carpentier was rewarded with a $154 ticket after he woke them up.
He posted the video to Youtube, where it's been viewed thousands of times.
A police spokeswoman, Sgt. Eloise Cossette, tells QMI Agency that the force will hold a disciplinary hearing into the incident.
"It's obvious that this type of behaviour is unacceptable," she said. "The two officers will have to produce a report to explain themselves."
Cossette said it's too early to say what disciplinary measures, if any, would be taken against the officers. Robert Poeti, a road-safety expert and one-time provincial police officer, tells QMI that the incident is embarrassing for his former colleagues.
"If they (the officers) were tired, they should have just returned to the station," said Poeti. "Their supervisor would have understood and definitely would have sent them home."
Carpentier was cited for parking his vehicle in an inappropriate spot - the side of the highway. He says he'll fight the ticket in court, since he only stopped because he was worried the officers might have been in danger.
"If they had been unconscious and I saved them from certain death, they would have thanked me," said Carpentier, 31.
But he says his faith in the police hasn't been shaken.
"When we need them, they're there for us," he said. "Those two are just bad apples in the bunch."
