I mean, he isn't convicted yet. Hasn't had a fair trial, so I understand the "leave without pay" part. Now if he was on leave WITH pay", then that would would be a major issue. And it's not odd that the other coworkers didn't suspect he was into child porn. Most of the people caught are normal citizens that have a dark past.

Everyone needs a union as strong as the police union except for police.

Much as I support the ACAB sentiment, the “leave without pay” thing is almost certainly due to bureaucratic requirements. Like, when I was in the military you could drop a video tape of you doing cocaine off a naked toddlers ass on your commanding officers desk… you’d still “have a job” at the end of the day. You’d be in jail, but actually processing you out would require all the paperwork to go through all the proper channels and be rubber stamped by all the right muckity-mucks, and it would often take a while. I can only imagine it’s similar with the police to a degree. Leave without pay is more than likely just saying “we need the conviction on paper before we fully shit-can you.”

"Leave without pay" is an HR status not a legal status. As he has been arrested only, they won't terminate his employment yet. He's no longer on duty and he's no longer receiving pay. However, he likely still has insurance and any other benefits.

Prosecutorial jurisdiction for this is Louisa not Richmond if that's where the files were found. Richmond is likely staying out of the way of Louisa's investigation and a possible Federal investigation assuming these images were received over the internet.

This is barely 48 hours after his arrest - I didn't read that he has been indicted yet.