美国国家公共电台 NPR 72 Philadelphia Police Officers Placed On Desk Duty Over Offensive Social Media Posts

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NOEL KING, HOST:

In Philadelphia, more than 70 police officers have been taken off their regular duties patrolling the city's streets. Philly is dealing¹ with a scandal over the release of thousands of offensive social media posts by police officers around the country. Police officials there say they're hoping to contain the damage that was done to public trust. Here's NPR's Bobby Allyn.

BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE²: Earlier this month, an advocacy group called the Plain View Project published thousands of Facebook posts by police officers in eight cities. In Philadelphia, 330 active officers were found to have publicly posted racist³ memes, Islamophobic messages, comments celebrating violence and other offensive material. Philadelphia Police Commissioner⁴ Richard Ross, who's usually mild-mannered, sounded downright angry talking about it to reporters.

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RICHARD ROSS: It makes me sick, to be honest with you. It really makes me sick because we are in a position to know better.

ALLYN: As the city's internal affairs investigates, Ross says he has placed 72 officers on desk duty. He says it's the largest removal of police from the streets in recent memory. Ross says some of the posts were so bad that he's planning to discipline dozens and fire several on the force.

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ROSS: In many ways, you know, we understand how this can tarnish⁵ or did tarnish our reputation. But we will work tirelessly to repair that reputation, to improve police community relations, as we are equally disgusted.

ALLYN: While Ross was direct about his disapproval⁶ of the posts, he also wanted to make another point. The database flagged some 300 officers out of a force of 6,500.

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ROSS: To assume that everybody is a racist, and everybody is Islamophobic, and everybody is a sexist and all the other things - 'cause they're not. That's just the reality. We are proud of the men and women in this organization. They come to work. They work hard. And they do it in a city that is not easy to do it in.

ALLYN: Paul Hetznecker has been a criminal defense⁷ lawyer in the city for more than 30 years. He says the Facebook message scandal is a new reminder⁸ of an old problem.

PAUL HETZNECKER: We're all aware of it. There's not anyone that hasn't been connected to the criminal justice system in Philadelphia that isn't aware of the underlying⁹ problems of implicit¹⁰ bias¹¹ and explicit¹² biases¹³ these posts reflect that have existed for a long, long period of time, for decades.

ALLYN: Commissioner Ross says, following the data dump, new anti-racist and anti-bias training will be launched department-wide. And officials will issue reminders¹⁴ about police social media policy, which prohibits profanity, discriminatory language or personal insults. Bobby Allyn, NPR News.