Police Officer Fired Over Pro-BLM Post on Social Media

Paula Liu
By Paula Liu
July 4, 2020US News
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Police Officer Fired Over Pro-BLM Post on Social Media
This photo illustration taken on March 22, 2018, shows apps for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networks on a smartphone. (Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images)

A Springfield Police Department officer was fired on June 19 for posting a pro-Black Lives Matter image to her social media while off duty, according to multiple reports.

Florissa Fuentes became part of the Springfield Police Department on July 18, 2019, where she was later promoted to detective, according to Massachusetts Live.

However, her career as an officer was cut short when she was fired from her job in the Special Victims Unit after posting a picture to her personal Instagram account that featured pro-BLM content. According to Massachusetts Live, the post in question is of Fuentes’s niece, who is a protestor in Atlanta, Georgia. Signs were also visible in the photo, with phrases on them supporting the movement written on the signs.

According to the news outlet, even though Fuentes worked as a police officer, she still wanted to support her niece.

The photo was taken on May 29, and Fuentes posted it to her social media on May 30, and not long after, things became chaotic, the news outlet reported.

“After I posted it, I started getting calls and texts from coworkers. I was initially confused, but then I realized they thought I was being anti-cop. I wasn’t. I was just supporting my niece’s activism. I had no malicious intent, and I wouldn’t put a target on my own back. I’m out there on the streets every day like everyone else,” Fuentes said.

Fuentes said that she later took the post off of her Instagram, after realizing the kind of effect that it had on her coworkers and the people around her. But on June 1, she received a call from the head of the Detective Bureau, Captain Trent Duda, to address the issue regarding her since-deleted Instagram post.

She told the captain that she knew why he was calling and that she meant no ill will by it. She apologized for posting the picture and said that she had already taken it down, according to Massachusetts Live.

Fuentes also recalled the captain telling her that the commissioner was angry about the post, but said if she told the commissioner the same thing she had told him, that it should be fine.

According to Fuentes, when she met with the commissioner, she was told to fix the issue by sending an apology to the police union’s Facebook page, which she did. Fuentes wrote the post, and although it had garnered some positive reactions from people who forgave her, others did not. The post was later taken down from the police union Facebook page.

She was told to keep her head down, and eventually, she was fired from the police department after being given the choice to either resign or be fired.

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