#Watcher chicago code#

(One defendant pleaded guilty to aiding in the kidnapping. “Execute all involved,” he wrote separately about a group of teens who were accused of killing a 6-year-old. “Just another savage that needs to be exterminated,” wrote Booker Smith Jr., a Dallas police sergeant, about a homicide at a Dollar General store. The officers mocked Mexicans, women, and black people, celebrated the Confederate flag, and showed a man wearing a kaffiyeh scarf in the crosshairs of a gun. Of the pages of officers whom the Plain View researchers could positively identify, about 1 in 5 of the current officers, and 2 in 5 of the retired officers, made public posts or comments that met that threshold - typically by displaying bias, applauding violence, scoffing at due process, or using dehumanizing language. The project sought to compile posts, comments, and other public activity that could undermine public trust in the police and reinforce the views of critics, especially in minority communities, that the police are not there to protect them. She compiled posts that represented troubling conduct in a database that is replete with racist imagery and memes, and in some cases long, vitriolic exchanges involving multiple officers.

The Plain View Project, launched by Philadelphia lawyer Emily Baker-White, examined the accounts of about 2,900 officers from eight departments across the country and an additional 600 retired officers from those same departments. What was never really captured was the scope of problematic online posts from police officers.īut a new review of police behavior on Facebook documents the systemic nature of the conduct across several departments.

The behavior was especially scrutinized after the Black Lives Matter movement blasted into the national conversation - and that scrutiny has continued ever after that movement began grappling with its future. Police officers saying bigoted and racist things online has been an issue since the beginning of social media.

#Watcher chicago code#

The Chicago Police Department has tried unsuccessfully to fire an officer whose own commander complained of his “ bigoted views.” A Facebook page called Chicago Code Blue attracted attention for inflammatory comments - such as “Every Thug Deserves a Slug” - after an officer was found guilty in the death of Laquan McDonald. Investigations that expose, influence and inform. He later settled a wrongful termination suit. The North Charleston, SC, police department fired an officer for posting a photo of himself wearing Confederate flag underwear, days after a white supremacist killed nine black worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church just miles away. Local law enforcement departments across the country have grappled with officers’ use of social media, often struggling to create and enforce policies that restrict offensive speech. They were the words of Philadelphia police officers. These comments weren’t from your everyday Facebook users. The numbers in this article have been adjusted to reflect that the Plain View Project removed from its database one officer inaccurately included.ĬHICAGO - When an armed, would-be robber backed out of a liquor store after the clerk pulled a gun on him, the surveillance video was posted on Facebook with a comment: “Should have shot him.”Īnother commenter responded, “I would of pulled the trigger.”