“They completely contradict how the Phoenix Police Department should speak about the members of our community or others,” Williams said in a statement.
York, a small city in south-central Pennsylvania, is likewise investigating its officers’ posts, and the police department will “take disciplinary action if any is warranted,” said Officer Derek Hartman, a police spokesman. York’s social media policy prohibits online conduct that “negatively impacts” the police department and residents.
The database includes a 2014 Facebook post purportedly by Galen Detweiler, a York officer who worked for Baltimore police at the time. “Bucket list: Punch a guy so hard he poops himself,” the post said. The comment had a checkmark next to it.
Three years later, Detweiler was caught on video repeatedly punching a female suspect in the face during a struggle outside a York bar.
The woman’s attorney, Leticia Chavez-Freed, said Wednesday she plans to use his 2014 post as an exhibit in a federal lawsuit alleging he used excessive force.
“You just see how embedded this culture is of punishing instead of policing, a lack of compassion for people who may not look like you, and frankly a love of violence,” she said.
York police declined to make Detweiler available for comment.
Baker-White, a former federal public defender in Philadelphia, got the idea for Plain View after she was assigned to a police brutality case and found an inflammatory social media post by one of the officers involved.
“That made me ask the question, how prevalent is this stuff? How much of this stuff is out there?” she said.
Funded by Injustice Watch, a not-for-profit journalism organization, Baker-White and her team pored through the Facebook accounts of more than 2,800 current officers and nearly 700 former officers.
They wound up flagging posts by 556 of the current officers — about one in 5 of those studied — and 299 former officers. The database includes more than 5,000 posts, as well as comments on the posts. The results were jointly published on Saturday by Injustice Watch and BuzzFeed News.
The Lake County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday it is reviewing posts by 16 deputies. Though department policy bars employees from posting material that is “unethical, slanderous, derogatory … or that tends to compromise the integrity of the member,” spokesman John Herrell said employees are given a “great deal more latitude” if they don’t identify themselves as members of the law enforcement agency.
And in Denison, Texas, City Manager Judson Rex said that the city 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Dallas “does not condone racism or hate of any kind, on or off the job” and will discipline officers “if needed.”
The Dallas Police Department did not respond to written questions Wednesday.
