Tweeting For Dummies
Social media can be a great tool when it comes to making a cop’s job easier, thanks to more than a few bone-headed bad guys who are dumb enough to tell the world about their crimes on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, it can also be a double-edged sword when members of law enforcement find themselves posting equally idiotic things.
Scores of cops have brought dishonor to themselves and their agencies by posting all kinds of crazy nonsense on the web. Sadly, some of them are so cyber-challenged that they think no one will read their rants because they’ve activated “privacy settings.”
With all the acrimony out there related to the “war on cops,” wildly violent and racist social media content posted by cops is a serious problem for agencies and associations. For instance, a detective in Las Vegas named Bobby Kinch recently posted this little nugget: “Let’s just get this over! Race war? Civil revolution? Bring it! I’m about as fed up as a man (American, Christian, White, Heterosexual) can get! See the morale fabric of this country get so trampled I wanna call it! GAME ON! I think we need a cleansing!”
Soon after, one of Kinch’s cooler-headed colleague tried to sound the alarm. “You’ve lost your mind,” Detective Joe Giannone responded. “This may be the dumbest sh*t you’ve ever posted. That’s saying a lot.”
Despite the fact that co-workers brought the race-war stuff to the attention of superiors, Kinch will keep his job.
One officer, who did not want to be identified, said this is part of the reason civilians think there’s something wrong in cop land.
“It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say, ‘Look, you’re upset with what’s going on in Ferguson? Well, we had an officer here that did this crap, and we fired him,’” the officer said. “But we dropped the ball.”
Instead, area police and the community they serve and protect now have to deal with whether or not the call to genocide was just a guy mouthing off or if it’s a predictor of high-profile use of force incidents, lawsuits, and a loss of credibility in terms of agency leadership.