A bullet-riddled photo of President Barack Obama posted to a cop’s Facebook page has attracted the attention of the Secret Service.
The picture on the facebook page of Peoria police sergeant Pat Shearer depicts seven young men, four of them holding automatic weapons, and one displaying a black t-shirt with an image of Obama that is bullet-riddled and slashed.
According to published reports, a citizen alerted the Secret Service to the image which has since been removed from Shearer’s Facebook page.
“Any time information like this is brought to our attention we have to conduct a follow-up,” Max Milien, spokesman for the Secret Service, said, according to AZcentral.com.
“We understand an individual’s right to free speech but we also have the right to speak to the individual to determine what their intent is,” Milien added.
AZcentral reports that “Pat Shearer, the 25-year Peoria police sergeant, who remains on active duty, also faces an internal investigation on the matter. An administrative investigation was prompted after they got word the Secret Service was looking into the photograph, Peoria police spokesman Jay Davies said.”
In a statement emailed to AZcentral on Friday, Peoria spokesman Bo Larsen said that the “city values a high standard of professional conduct and ethical behavior. These are expectations we have of all our employees.”
According to the Peoria Police Department’s social-media policy, which includes social-networking sites and blogs, “employees shall not post, transmit, reproduce and/or disseminate information (text, pictures, video, audio, etc.) to the Internet or any other forum (public or private) that would tend to discredit or reflect unfavorably upon the department or any of the department’s employees.”
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