A Westerville Police officer is on leave over concerns raised about her social media posts.
The posts include political statements and comments about the ongoing "Black Lives Matter" protest movement.
10TV is not identifying the officer but verified the posts that prompted her suspension, and an internal investigation of whether she violated the city's social media policy.
She shared this post from Ted Nugent: "The sooner Americans admit to themselves that Democrats are Communists, the sooner we can begin repairing the damage they have done."
A postdated June 23 reads, "Congratulations to the Left on a great week: they defeated two cartoons, a pancake mix, a box of rice an ice cream bar and a syrup bottle."
It references decisions by food companies to change products based on racial stereotypes.
A third post, date unknown, says: “It's not about color, it's about the law. Police say stop, you stop:” showing a person cuffed and standing. “Police say stop, you don't stop:” showing a person cuffed face down on the ground.
Another post shows a line of police car emojis, with the text: "You all better use this time to fix your cracked windshields, plate lights, expired tags and insurance! Because when this is over, it's GAME ON!"
Though it could be perceived as a message to protesters, it is dated April 6, weeks before the protests began.
Westerville's Chief of Police Charles Chandler told 10TV: "We received information about controversial posts late in the afternoon and put the officer on administrative leave pending and internal affairs investigation."
"My first response was, here we go again,” said Ohio State Assistant Law Professor Courtlyn Roser-Jones. “Because there is a tendency in our society to think that our First Amendment rights are absolute and that we can say whatever we want about politics whether we're on the job or off the job. And that's just not the case.”
Westerville's social media policy addresses even personal social media accounts, saying city employees are expected to understand that their posts "...may be viewed as a reflection on the City" and "should be consistent with the ethics and behavior considered acceptable by the City."
"...Things like is this going to get a lot of negative media attention? Is this going to somehow impair a public sector employee from doing their job or having credibility with the public?” said Roser-Jones. “That's the kind of thing that they're looking at in terms of balancing speech out. It doesn't mean that you don't have a First Amendment right, it just means that your First Amendment right is limited."
Roser-Jones says the First Amendment protects us from intervention by the government, but not necessarily our employer.
“The Constitution protects you to speak. It doesn't guarantee you a right to be a police officer.”
Westerville police say Chief Chandler has fourteen days to hold a hearing based on the findings of the internal investigation.