A sad day

Portland, Oregon – In a shocking story uncovered today, it was learned that a local cop was arrested yesterday for panhandling.

Yes, panhandling.

The details are still sketchy but insiders have established a rough timeline for the story that has shaken the city.

The liberal, hipster city, considered the ugly step-kid of Seattle, Washington, has been rocked by this embarrassing story.

Officer Ortega was booked late last night for the class 3 misdemeanor charge which normally results in just a ticket.

But like most metropolitan cities, a wave of panhandlers and persons begging at intersections has engulfed the area like migrating locusts.

The citizens of this city, one of the most liberal in the country, have had enough with the epidemic.

“It just doesn’t make sense that I work for a fortune 500 company and can barely pay my bills,” said one disgruntled citizen.

“But to find out these guys are making bank by perpetuating a lie is bogus dude,” he concluded.

We wanted to find out why a cop would even entertain such a side-hustle as this one.

We had to learn more.

Easy money

“It was easy money,” Ortega blurted out during his booking.

“I mean, where else can you get paid this kind of money for standing around doing nothing, other than maybe being a fireman,” Ortega confessed to reporters after posting bond.

See Related Article: “3 Reasons Why Cops Hate Firemen”

It seems that Officer Ortega picked the highest paying panhandling gig in the country.

We did some fact checking and discovered that Ortega’s cop salary was just a shade over 36K a year.

Some panhandlers in this city, the really good ones, can clear 75K a year or more!

“Before I got busted, I was bringing home a couple hundred bucks a day,” said Ortega. “And I was just about to move up to a busy intersection.”

The word in the panhandling circuit saw Ortega as a rising star who was about to take his game to the next level.

“That son of a bitch was killing it,” said one veteran panhandler.

“He just makes begging look too damn easy,” he muttered through his obvious fake grey beard.

It was Ortega’s cardboard sign that skyrocketed his earnings to levels never seen in this part of the country.

It also may have led to his undoing.

The sign read, “Starving Cop, Underpaid and Under-Appreciated, Wife Left…Girlfriend Pregnant..God Bless”…

Ortega was asked if he regrets losing his police job over this controversial side hustle.

Ortega responded emphatically,”absolutely not!”

“I plan on getting right back out there, as soon as I can make another sign,” he proudly professed.

Based on current starting salaries for cops across the country, we could find no fault in Ortega’s career move from police officer to panhandler..

See Related Article: “Liberal Leave Policy a Disaster for One West Coast Police Agency”

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