Video: Police Officer Posts Picture of Bullet-Ridden Obama T-Shirt on Facebook
Sgt. Pat Shearer of Peoria, Arizona, admitted to KNXV-TV that he took a photo of several young men (maybe minors) posing with assault rifles and an Obama T-shirt that had been riddled with bullets. Sgt. Shearer posted it to his Facebook page with the caption “Another trip to the ranch (video below).
Sgt. Shearer defended the picture: “I don’t think that the shooting of that T-shirt is that big of a deal. It was more of a political statement. It’s not like they were going to go out and shoot the president."
However, Peoria Police spokesman Jay Davies told KPHO-TV: "We received information about a possible policy violation today involving one of our employees. We were contacted by the Secret Service.”
Sgt. Shearer has since removed the photo (below) from his Facebook page, but Peoria police are investigating if he violated their social media policy.
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What is also interesting to me is that this is the same state that Gabby Giffords was shot in the head.
As a US Marine, I'd like to make a "political statement" with this jerk and his nimrod jackass fools.
I thought there was the idea that public servants, like police officers, were "held to a higher standard". But maybe being in Maricopa county with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, that doesn't apply there? For sure, intelligence doesn't seem to be a requirement.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
If by "higher standard" you mean that the punishment for being caught breaking the law is a month's paid vacation, er, suspension, then yes. There's been many calls for LEOs to be held to a higher standard due to their function of enforcing the law, but it still only exists in our dreams and their nightmares.
I thought there was the idea that public servants, like police officers, were "held to a higher standard". But maybe being in Maricopa county with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, that doesn't apply there? For sure, intelligence doesn't seem to be a requirement.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
He doesn't sound like much of a reader, or he would have known that the Secret Service takes this sort of behavior seriously. (And for the life of me, I really cannot think of anything Obama has done that should generate that much hostility -- it's not like when Bill Clinton told NRA members to go to Hell.)
He decides to do this about a year after republican heroes publish on the web maps with cross-hairs over the location of democratic lawmaker's offices/districts and one of their many mentally unstable followers takes a gun and shoots her and about a half dozen of her constituents. Tuscon's not THAT far from Peoria (only about 150 miles).
As a cop, he should be well aware of all the hyperbole and huffandpuff about terrorism in this country these days - since he's expected to help promote it - and he should also be well aware that threatening the president is illegal. Yet he still thinks it's a good idea or at least not wildly irresponsible to publish images mixing bullets and the president?
When you ratchet up the demonization of public figures instead of rational debate and use images/metaphors of firearms and/or bombs, the violent mentally unstable - who are already drawn to guns as part of their illness - will see that as a call to action, and it's only a matter of time before one of these crazies decides to act. Are you any less responsible for the acts of an angry mob when you didn't throw the bricks, bats, or molotov cocktails - you just spent hours spreading lies and whipping them into a frenzy with calls for violence?
If you aren't capable of expressing your views without involving threats of violence and involving weapons, have you really put enough thought into the topic? We look down on other cultures for using violence first (lots of public criticism of the Islamic countries for doing that sort of thing), yet fail to check that urge in ourselves or even recognize that we're doing it too.
It's unlikely that he's a credible threat and there won't be any legal ramifications.
Whether he is a racist jerk or just a plain old idiot it doesn't really matter. As an American citizen it is his right to express his anger and frustration even if it makes other people upset. Throughout history people have burned people in effigy (in one form or another) in order to 'rally the troops' and effect change that they desire. The real dicey part comes when it's able to be labeled as 'inciting a riot' but let's not make this a police-state or a scene out of 'Minority Report' and throw him in jail for something that hasn't happened.
That said... unfortunately for the residents of that city, he is supposed to be a role model. His profession requires a certain sense of propriety and common sense that he seems to lack. He could very well lose his career if they find that he violated his employer's social-media policy, but I hope that in the end he can be rehabilitated and continue to be a functioning member of society...even if it means he now has to support his family as a Walmart greeter instead of carrying a loaded weapon.
Yeah, you wonder if someone got a picture of his daughter and did the same thing. How would he feel then? Or, if how would he feel if a bunch of black kids from Louisiana did that to a shirt of Bush?
And, yes, I did notice that all of the kids were white.
You're expecting a rational and objective action from an obviously red neck racist? The best we can hope for is that he is dismissed from the profession and never again can work where he carried a badge and gun.
Yes, they seem to be white but let's be fair. They might have been Hispanic or the skin color could have easily been altered with a phot-editor.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
I have to confess that I once did the same thing to a target that was over a drawing of Barney the Dinosaur. But threatening the President is different.