PerspectiveHundreds of Cops Are in Extremist Facebook Groups. Why Haven’t Their Departments Done Anything about It?

In June, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting identified hundreds of police officers across the country who were members of closed racist, Islamophobic, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups on Facebook. “We sought reaction frommore than 150 law enforcement departments about their officers’ involvement in these extremist groups,” Will Carless writes in Reveal News, but “only one department – the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which fired a detective for racist posts – has publicly taken any significant action.

He adds:

More than 50 departments promised investigations, but few have taken any other steps. The Portland Police Bureau said “no jurisdiction existed” for it to take any action against an officer whose Islamophobic comments were posted before he joined the agency. The New York Police Department said it couldn’t substantiate reporting showing one of its officers had posted misogynistic comments, even though we obtainedscreenshots.  

Social media activity isn’t just a public-facing display of officers’ beliefs and biases. Officers are susceptible to being radicalized online just like so many civilians, said Christy Lopez, a Georgetown Law professor who oversaw the Department of Justice’s civil rights investigation into the Ferguson Police Department. 

“It’s hard when you get out there as a new officer, you’re from a sheltered community somewhere, and you start to see a lot of pain and harm that is often happening in poor communities of color,” Lopez said. “And it is easy for officers who are trying to deal with the emotional impact of that to start to dehumanize people.”