Philadelphia did not violate rights of police officers fired over offensive Facebook posts, court rules

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Police Department did not violate the First Amendment rights of several officers who were fired or suspended for racist and violent social media posts, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone issued her decision Monday, just days before the case was set to go to trial. She determined that the officers’ posts and comments were “likely to cause significant interference” with the police department and city operations and did not constitute protected speech.

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The officers’ social media accounts were included in a database released in 2019 known as the Plain View Project, which cataloged thousands of bigoted or violent posts by former and serving police officers in several states .

In Philadelphia, nearly 200 officers were disciplined, including 15 who were forced off the job. Most of those who were fired were eventually overturned by an arbitrator and allowed to return to the force, while some retired. An officer’s dismissal was upheld by an arbitrator.

Twenty of the disciplined officers eventually filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, claiming the police department retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment rights.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in February 2022, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision in June 2023, saying the lawsuit was prematurely dismissed. The city then argued that the case should not go to trial and that Bettlestone should determine the outcome, a motion it granted.

In her ruling, Beetlestone detailed how each officer’s statements could erode public trust, demean the populations they are charged with protecting, and make officers unreliable witnesses if called to testify in court cases.

Attorneys for the city and the attorney representing eight of the officers declined to comment on the ruling, while the attorney for the other officers did not respond to a request for comment.

The Facebook posts, all public, were discovered by a team of researchers who spent two years looking at the personal accounts of police officers from Arizona to Florida. They found officers beating immigrants and Muslims, promoting racist stereotypes, identifying with right-wing militia groups and, above all, glorifying police brutality.