The Philadelphia Police Department is expected to fire more than a dozen officers over offensive social media posts.
The firings are the culmination of a weeks-long investigation by the police department into allegedly racist and anti-Muslim social media posts made by officers, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross took 72 police officers off patrol and placed them on desk duty in the course of the investigation.
Up to 13 officers are expected to be fired, according to sources familiar with the situation. The officers are expected to be suspended with intent to dismiss starting Friday.
The department’s investigation began after a database known as the Plain View Project compiled thousands of social media posts of officers serving in Philadelphia and seven other jurisdictions. The Plain View Project had cataloged the social media posts of about 330 of 6,500 officers on Philadelphia’s force.
Ross described the posts as “disturbing, disappointing and upsetting.”
Police and sheriff departments in Dallas, St. Louis, and Lake County, Florida, have also launched internal investigations as a result of the Plain View Project database.
