A Baltimore Police officer is facing serious charges after prosecutors say he spent months pretending to work while actually parked somewhere sipping a smoothie. Officer Dequwan Houchins, 30, was indicted on four counts of false entry in a public record and five counts of misconduct in office, and if that sounds like a lot of paperwork trouble, it is. Prosecutors say he could face up to 12 years behind bars and thousands in fines if convicted on all counts.
The story came to light after a routine audit in December 2025 turned up something odd in the department’s electronic reporting system. According to Baltimore’s State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, the audit discovered that for several months, Houchins had been making numerous false reports of traffic stops, along with fake entries logged into the system officers use to track their shifts. That is not the kind of discrepancy that slips by unnoticed for long, and it did not here either, said CBS News.
So detectives decided to watch and wait instead of just asking questions. Between April 8 and May 13, undercover officers observed Houchins on four separate occasions, during which he made nine actual traffic stops but logged eight more that never happened. In other words, nearly half of his reported stops were, according to investigators, pure fiction.
Meanwhile, Houchins was reportedly seen sitting in his patrol car, talking on the phone, and at one point ordering a smoothie while the paperwork claimed he was out doing his job.
The kicker is what those phantom stops were apparently covering for. Investigators say the false reports were used to claim he was unavailable to respond to service calls, which meant other officers had to pick up the slack for calls that would have gone to him. That is the part that seems to have irritated the department most. It is one thing to skip a task here or there, but it is another to let your coworkers absorb the workload while you are parked somewhere enjoying a cold beverage.
The Department Did Not Hold Back
Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley was blunt about it at Monday’s press conference, calling it exactly what it sounded like. “This was just a lazy cop who didn’t want to do anything and wanted to collect a paycheck,” Worley said. It is not often you hear a police commissioner describe one of his own officers in quite those terms, but he did not appear interested in softening the message.
“The allegations in this indictment reflect a troubling disregard for that responsibility,” said Baltimore state attorney Ivan Bates. “Falsifying official records for personal convenience is a serious breach of public trust.”
State’s Attorney Bates added that the badge comes with responsibilities that go beyond just the public. He said officers take an oath that includes a duty to the fellow officers who rely on them every day, and called the allegations a troubling disregard for that responsibility. Baltimore’s mayor chimed in too, calling the conduct “shameful” and thanking the department’s ethics investigators for taking action.
What Happens Next
Houchins was indicted in Baltimore Circuit Court and now heads toward trial, where a judge or jury will sort out whether the allegations hold up. When a reporter reached him by phone and described the accusations, including the smoothie detail, he reportedly seemed caught off guard. He has not been convicted of anything yet, and everyone deserves their day in court.
Most of us have had a slow day at work where we stretched a break a little longer than we should have. But faking official records and quietly shifting your workload onto coworkers is a different animal entirely, especially when the job in question involves public safety. If the allegations are true, this is less about a bad day and more about a pattern, and that tends to catch up with people eventually.