Cops Caught Playing ‘Crime Bingo’ on Duty

In Bozeman, Montana, thirteen police officers—yes, including two sergeants—spent nearly two weeks in January playing bingo on the clock. But not the kind your grandma plays at the community center. This version included squares like “execute a car search” and “beat the fire department to a scene.”

It wasn’t just bad optics. While the officers treated arrests and emergencies like scorekeeping opportunities, they also sent dozens of cases through the system—24 misdemeanors and 11 felonies, to be exact, all while competing for a win.

The game, described by Police Chief Jim Veltkamp as “two teams of patrol officers engaged in a bingo competition,” went on for 12 days before leadership found out and shut it down. “It did look like your standard bingo card,” Veltkamp admitted. “Then they filled in squares… with things they wanted to see happen.”

The fallout was immediate. Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell reviewed the related cases and made the call to drop four felony charges outright and decline prosecution on five more, including drug-related charges and one for partner/family member assault.

“I made the determination that to best protect the constitutional and due process rights of the defendants, and to ensure fairness of their trials, the cases should be dismissed,” Cromwell said. She called it “a tough call,” but one that had to be made in the interest of justice.

This wasn’t all harmless stuff like fitness scores or who showed up first to a scene. Some squares involved real police action—like conducting a search warrant—which raises serious questions about whether officers were pushing legal boundaries just to win a game.

The department says it’s taking corrective steps: more training, closer supervision, and internal conversations about why this was not even remotely okay. “We are fully committed to learn from it and ensure it, or anything like it, does not happen again,” said Interim City Manager Chuck Winn during a public statement.

Veltkamp declined to comment on the case dismissals. But the implications go beyond Bozeman. It’s one thing to question law enforcement priorities. It’s another to find out they’ve been gamified—for fun, on duty, and at real people’s expense.