“I was unable to control myself” says sergeant who was involved with lower-ranking man.

A unique aspect of Japanese cityscapes are koban, or “police boxes,” like the one pictured above. They’re essentially miniature police stations with an officer or two on duty should local residents need police assistance, and just about every neighborhood has one.

Another distinctly Japanese building is the love hotel, where consenting adults can pop into a private room for a few hours when they want to have sex but their homes aren’t an immediate option.

Koban and love hotels, of course, are supposed to be separate architectural structure entirely. Unfortunately, a pair of police officers in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, decided to make their koban do double duty as a place for them to do the deed.

The amorous officers were a 29-year-old female police sergeant, who was assigned to a police box in the Koshien neighborhood, and a 26-year male senior police officer (despite the counterintuitive naming, the woman’s rank is actually one higher than the man’s).

Sometime in the fall of 2019, the two became romantically involved, and one evening while she was on duty in the police box, the woman called the man to come see her, after which they snuck off to the break room to have sex. Their relationship continued until at least the following February, which is when their second reported sexual liaison in the koban took place, this time in an on-site room for officers to nap in during their breaks.

▼ It’s more romantic than a patrol car, we suppose.

It’s unclear whether the two continued their relationship once spring came, but in March of 2020 the woman became involved with a different man in her division, a 33-year-old police sergeant. This time both parties apparently managed to keep their pants on, but the woman and her second police paramour did make use of the privacy of a police interview/statement room in order to kiss while the man was on duty.

Eventually a whistleblower came forward and reported the woman, triggering an internal investigation that revealed her relationship with the two men. The three members of the love triangle (which is, in fact, part of an even larger and messier love polygon, as all three of them are married) have admitted to the conduct, with the woman saying, “I was unable to control myself,” and the younger man saying, “I got carried away in the excitement.”

Both men received official admonitions, while the woman’s pay was docked by 10 percent for three months. The disciplinary discrepancy may have something to do with the woman being of a higher rank than the younger man, and the older man not having engaged in sexual activity on police property/while on duty. The reduction in pay may turn out to be a moot point, however, as both the woman and the younger man resigned from their positions on Friday, the same date as their punishments were announced.

The situation brings to mind the incident last year when two other Hyogo police officers were also found to have been having sex at their police box — in that case as well, the higher-ranking officer, a man, had his pay reduced by 10 percent while the lower-ranking officer, a woman, was reprimanded without a reduction in pay. Additionally, in 2017 yet another pair of officers in Hyogo were found to have engaged in sexual activity inside the locker room of a prefectural police martial arts training dojo.

With the Hyogo police department no doubt wanting to put a stop to its recurring embarrassments, it would probably be wise for them to focus on serving and protecting the community, rather than servicing each other.

Source: Kobe Shimbun Next via Hachima Kiko
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