Video shows officer pressuring driver for donation

“You and your friend got any money to buy these Hero Thrill show tickets?”, Mr Zagursky casually said in the clip, uploaded to Facebook on Thursday.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey took quick disciplinary action against Zagursky after seeing the videos on Friday morning, the Inquirer reports.

A Philadelphia police officer was reassigned to desk duty and stripped of his service weapon on Friday, the day after video surfaced showing him pressuring a motorist to donate to a fundraising event. Zagursky was also heard on video making a homophobic remark while discussing pink windshield wipers on the auto. “You got these tickets, man. Go support your Police Department”. In reply, the sunglasses-wearing Zagursky says, “You don’t look like a couple of fruitcakes”.

In the video, Zagursky is heard asking the driver if he has money to buy tickets to the Police and Fire Hero Thrill Show fundraiser.

“Breast cancer man”, the driver says.

It appears Zagursky was unaware that the cell phone, sitting in the console between the two men, was recording his unlawful actions.

Investigators would attempt to trace that information electronically, working off the Facebook page on which two brief videos, taped from within the vehicle, were posted.

“Breast cancer I can understand, but can’t you support breast cancer another way?”

Ramsey said he does not know when the traffic stop occurred, but he said the tickets displayed by the officer have been available for only about a month.

In the first video, Officer Matthew Zagursky is seen trying to sell tickets to a fundraiser to a not very enthusiastic driver.

The commissioner has taken the officer off the streets but is waiting for Internal Affairs to complete its investigation before deciding to fire him.