As long as the private property is generally open to the public, like a church or a store lot, it’s perfectly acceptable for a patrolman to park there.
I routinely park in a plaza lot and use the MDT to do reports, read BOLO updates, eat, take a rest, etc…
There are a zillion legitimate reasons that officer could be parked in that lot.
One of the things I don’t do is use the data terminal to surf the web. it’s use is monitored and that is a big no-no!
Eating, giving a breathalyzer test, adjusting their Billy club, wasting taxpayer money, the list is infinite.
Yeah, that is a great way to get shot.
My church actually gives away alcohol toward the end of the service.
The town I live near has two cops and three cars. They created a speed trap (painted lines on the road) and keep the spare car, empty, there. Outsiders driving through town hit their brakes, while the locals just fly through.
Church have unsecured WiFi for the offices? Or maybe the LEO has the pw for private phone usage and doesn’t chew up his data plan.
Churches are actually fairly high on the list of opportune targets for vandalism, up to and including arson. I find it doubtful that the pastor, and the church elders, or board are unaware of the frequent presence of the police in their parking lot. Given that probability, if it was something they found objectionable, they could ask the police to leave. If they don’t mind, why do you?
Tris
These are not the miscreants you are looking for. Move along.
I don’t believe you would get shot, but you might earn a police escort to and from work. 
The church might have asked them to be there to catch people using the parking lot for illegal activities, or in case something happens at the service where they need the police.
Pretty much this. The church near us allows the cops to use a room in their basement to do paperwork.
Surely they are parking there to annoy the OP?
My ex-wife’s stepfather got lots of speeding tickets and hated the cops who wrote them. He owned a big auto-parts store and one day a cop set up in his parking lot to observe traffic. He had the lot posted (customer use only, all others will be towed) so he called the police and reported a car illegally parked on his property.
It was probably the happiest day of his life.
My dad did something similar a few times. There was a cop that would routinely set up on an on ramp in a place that was difficult for people getting on the freeway to see him. There were plenty of (and I saw them first hand) times where people would turn onto the on ramp and find themselves having to swerve around him. I don’t know if he didn’t see it or didn’t care.
It got to the point that when my dad would see him there he’d call the (non-emergency) police and let them know there’s broken down/parked car on the freeway on ramp, in the way of traffic, which it was.
I’m surprised no one ever rear ended the cop. It didn’t help that he was in an unmarked, dark colored car.
Yeah, don’t put down just showing the flag.
I know in DC in the 90s - when I was reporting there - cops would occasionally choose to do paperwork or whatever at night in areas where both drugs and prostitution was known to occur just to force such things elsewhere. Every week or so there’d be a new place and they’d quietly put pressure on the users/girls/johns by showing up and just being around.
There are also police cars out there now with license plate reading cameras that just sit on the side of the road for long periods of time, cycling plates through their laptop system until BINGO warrant pops up on the blue Chrysler and they’re immediately pulled over and arrested.
They’re probably killing time lurking on the SDMB.
They’ve probably moved because you revealed that.
One of my criteria for a “paperwork spot” was to park in an area where I can see all approaches to my car. A large, empty parking lot, especially a lit one, is perfect for that.
IIRC from my younger days growing up, dark, isolated parking lots are often attractive nuisances for teenagers and young adults with nothing to do. Particularly in small towns. So they end up hanging out in some supermarket or strip mall parking lot, often drinking or doing drugs. Sometimes there might be fights if other groups of kids from a different town or social circle show up. So sitting there in your patrol car is a good way to discourage this. They don’t even have to be in the same lot every night. Just knowing “the cops sometimes hang out there” is usually enough of a deterrent.
Or maybe the minister is a police supporter. Or the church has been broken into. Many places of business actually like the police coming around because they are anti-crime.