Officials are investigating inflammatory remarks, including anti-Muslim comments, by current and former police officers in a private Facebook group.
Four police officers in San Jose, Calif., have been placed on administrative leave after an anonymous blog post accused retired and current officers of posting racist and anti-Muslim comments in a private Facebook group.
“While I have no control over what former employees post online, I can voice my outrage after hearing about these comments made online,” the police chief, Eddie Garcia, said in a statement. “Any current employee involved with bigoted activity online will promptly be investigated and held accountable to the fullest extent in my power. We have no place for this.”
A spokeswoman for the San Jose Police Department said on Sunday that the police were conducting an “administrative investigation” after a Medium blog post chronicled various inflammatory posts by retired and current San Jose police officers. The post detailed discussions in the private Facebook group “10–7ODSJ.”
In response to a Facebook post about a Los Angeles Muslim woman’s hijab being pulled off by an officer, one user said to “repurpose” hijabs as nooses. Another post called the Black Lives Matter movement “racist,” saying it was part of an “anti-American narrative.
