Falls River police apologize for Facebook post about George Floyd; officer responsible reassigned

The police chief in Falls River, Massachusetts, apologized for a social media posting on the department’s Facebook page criticizing George Floyd and said the officer who shared it has been reassigned.

Jeffrey Cardoza, chief of police for the Falls City Police Department, said the officer responsible for the Facebook post risks further disciplinary action pending the results of an investigation.

The since-deleted post was shared by the department’s Facebook page after jurors in Minneapolis convicted Derek Chauvin, a former police officer there, of murder and manslaughter for killing Floyd.

“Chauvin immediately stood and calmly placed his hands behind his back” after the verdict was announced, the post said, the Herald News reported. “Imagine where we’d be had George done the same.”

The Falls City Police Department said after removing the post, which the Herald News described as a screenshot of a posting made on Twitter, that it had been “inadvertently” shared by personnel.

An unidentified Falls City officer with access to its social media account “thought they were re-posting an opinion to their personal Facebook,” the chief of police said in another statement later.

“Today’s posting in no way reflects the beliefs of this organization. I am personally disappointed these attitudes exist. Through training, we have been and will continue to ensure our staff practices fair and impartial policing,” he said in the statement. “We will thoroughly investigate and address this incident, up to and including disciplinary action.”

The officer “has been transferred to an assignment that has no contact with the public” and their actions will be investigated by an outside agency, the chief of police said in the statement.

Floyd, a Black man, died in May after being pinned to the ground by Chauvin, who is White, while being placed under arrest. Jurors deliberated for less than 12 hours before convicting Chauvin on Tuesday.

President Biden asked Congress after to pass police reform legislation, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said the U.S. Department of Justice will probe the policing practices in Minneapolis.