The Philadelphia police department did not violate the First Amendment rights of several officers who were fired or suspended for racist and violent social media posts.
The Facebook posts, all of which were public, were uncovered by a team of researchers who spent two years looking at the personal accounts of police officers from Arizona to Florida. They found officers bashing immigrants and Muslims, promoting racist stereotypes, identifying with right-wing militia groups and, especially, glorifying police brutality.
shockedpikachu.jpg
Glad something was done and that the court upheld it, but the statistics are still kinda depressing.
In Philadelphia, nearly 200 officers were disciplined, including 15 who were forced off the job. Most of those who were fired ultimately had their dismissals overturned by an arbitrator and were permitted to return to the force, while some retired. The firing of one officer was upheld by an arbitrator.
Twenty of the disciplined officers eventually filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, asserting the police department had retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment rights.
This article is about those twenty disciplined officers, and the effort resulted in only one firing that stuck, it sounds like.
shockedpikachu.jpg
Glad something was done and that the court upheld it, but the statistics are still kinda depressing.
This article is about those twenty disciplined officers, and the effort resulted in only one firing that stuck, it sounds like.