Investigation underway into Philadelphia police officers caught sleeping on duty

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Two Philadelphia police officers who were caught sleeping while on duty Friday night into Saturday morning are suffering from humiliation and an investigation.

A cellphone snapshot of the incident has gone viral.

The pair are now under investigation by Internal Affairs and it appears some kind of discipline is imminent.

"It is what it is. We're not making excuses for the situation, but it is going to be investigated and the appropriate disciplinary action will take place," Lt. John Standford said.

The cops in question work out of the 24th district covering parts of Upper Kensington and Port Richmond.

The department knows a picture like this can do a lot of public relations damage.

"I know there's a tremendous amount of men and women that come to work each day and give the city 110% of their time and effort in doing good police work. This is not a depiction of the entire department," Standford said.

There is a safety issue here. Police personnel are alluding to last December's ambush murder of two New York City officers. They were eating lunch wide awake when a man opened fire killing them both in cold blood.

"There's a safety concern which is the biggest element of all, that someone was able to take a picture close enough to them without waking them up. It could've been deadly to be very honest," Standford said.

The department is not releasing the names of those two officers as of now.