Notorious hothead cop suspended for illegal detention of smoking man
After being asked for his name and badge number, Franklin Poblocki unlawfully detained a man who was old enough to legally smoke
A cop with a history of on-the-job outbursts is in trouble again. Officer Frank Poblocki, who previously made headlines for lurking outside the workplace of a man who insulted him, was suspended three days for illegally detaining a bystander who committed no crime, according to an OPA report released on Friday.
While responding to a medical crisis involving a fallen woman, Poblocki asked a witness if she had been using drugs. When the man replied that he did not know, Poblocki seemed to take this as an insult and repeatedly accused the witness of lying. The witness chose to disengage but later returned to request his name and badge number.
In response, Poblocki accused the man, who was smoking, of being too young to legally possess cigarettes, erroneously claiming that 21 is the minimum age to use or possess tobacco. While it is against the law to sell tobacco products to someone under 21, it is still legal for anyone over 18 to possess and consume cigarettes.
The witness gave Poblocki his name and birthdate, which he could not locate in the system because he misspelled the man’s name. Poblocki detained the man for 25 minutes while waiting for a fingerprint reader. Ultimately, the witness was let go with a citation after his identity was verified.
An officer who witnessed the incident spelled out Poblocki’s logic: “When someone pisses you off, you seek something that you can detain them for and write an infraction, maybe even an arrest.”
OPA determined that Poblocki’s detention was unnecessary and illegal. In Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers must have “reasonable suspicion” that a person has committed a crime in order to detain them. OPA argued that Poblocki had no “articulable” basis to believe the man was under 18 beyond his appearance. Poblocki was also in direct violation of SPD policy, which forbids officers from requiring identification during an investigative detention.
The OPA also found that Poblocki behaved unprofessionally throughout the encounter, noting that he “escalated and antagonized [the man] through the detention, the putative purpose of which was to issue [him] a civil infraction for what turned out not to be a crime.”
According to the report, Poblocki repeatedly invaded the man’s personal space, said he was “acting like a child,” frisked him for weapons, and accused him of lying. Chief Adrian Diaz gave Poblocki a three-day suspension—the lowest end of the range OPA recommended.
This isn’t the first time Frank Poblocki has abused his power to harass a community member. In 2018 Poblocki sat outside an Autozone to intimidate a worker who had reportedly called him a “bitch” earlier that morning while Poblocki was towing his car.
For that incident, former Chief Carmen Best demoted Poblocki, who had recently been made sergeant, and suspended him for 15 days without pay. A follow-up investigation initiated by the OPA found that Poblocki repeatedly lied to investigators about his intentions during the first investigation. Per the police guild contract, the presumed penalty for dishonesty is termination, but Chief Best showed Poblocki leniency and suspended him for 30 days.
Hired in 1999, Poblocki has had six sustained complaints since 2012, five of which resulted in a suspension. He made $200,000 last year.