Did Republicans FORCE cops to do these things?
In a private Facebook group called the Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom, many current and retired officers spent the year criticizing chiefs who took a knee or officers who marched with Black Lives Matter protesters, whom they called “terrorists” or “thugs.” They made transphobic posts and bullied members who supported anti-police brutality protesters or Joe Biden in a forum billed as a place officers can “decompress, rant, share ideas.”
Many of the deluge of daily posts were jokes about the hardships of being officers, memorials to deceased colleagues or conversations about training and equipment. But over the group’s almost four-year existence, a few dozen members became more vocal with posts that shifted toward pro-Donald Trump memes and harsh criticism of anyone perceived to support so-called “demoncrats,” Black Lives Matter or coronavirus safety measures.
In June, Tim Huschak, a corporal at the Borough of Lincoln Police Department, posted a screenshot of an Allegheny County 911 dispatcher’s Facebook page indicating that the phrase “Blue Lives Matter” used by law enforcement supporters is not equivalent to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” because policing is a choice, not a fact of birth. He wrote: “Many negative posts on police. And we should trust her with our lives???”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/police-officers-posts-to-private-facebook-group-show-hostility-and-hateHundreds of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers from across the United States are members of Confederate, anti-Islam, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups on Facebook, a Reveal investigation has found.
These cops have worked at every level of American law enforcement, from tiny, rural sheriff’s departments to the largest agencies in the country, such as the Los Angeles and New York police departments. They work in jails and schools and airports, on boats and trains and in patrol cars. And, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting discovered, they also read and contribute to groups such as “White Lives Matter” and “DEATH TO ISLAM UNDERCOVER.”
The groups cover a range of extremist ideologies. Some present themselves publicly as being dedicated to benign historical discussion of the Confederacy, but are replete with racism inside. Some trade in anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant memes. Some are openly Islamophobic. And almost 150 of the officers we found are involved with violent anti-government groups such as the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters.
More than 50 departments launched internal investigations after being presented with our findings, in some cases saying they would examine officers’ past conduct to see if their online activity mirrored their policing in real life. And some departments have taken action, with at least one officer being fired for violating department policies.
https://revealnews.org/article/inside-hate-groups-on-facebook-police-officers-trade-racist-memes-conspiracy-theories-and-islamophobia/A series of bigoted and anti-Muslim Facebook posts linked to a group of retired and active San Jose Police Department officers has been met with swift rebukes from officials and civil-rights advocates, including calls for their firings and a top-down review of cases where they testified in court.
The private group – called 10-7ODSJ, a reference to the police code for “off duty” – was the subject of an article posted Friday to Medium, an online platform. The author, identified only as the partner of a Bay Area police officer, said the piece was motivated in part by allegations that a similar Facebook group plotted violence against Shaun King, an activist and journalist involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. A retired San Jose police sergeant, the author said, is a member of both groups.
“I recognized some of the names,” the author said in a phone interview Friday. “Is this the entire police department? No, it’s not. But within the entire police department, people know about it.”
San Jose police say four active officers identified as making offensive posts in the group, which has since been taken down, have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. Chief Eddie Garcia has also called for the assistance of the FBI, which was already probing the group that targeted King.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/26/san-jose-police-officers-racist-facebook-posts-exposed-by-blogger/
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