It is often said that police officers in this country show a united front even when one of their own has displayed questionable behavior. However, earlier this month, Officer Freddie Vincent couldn’t help speaking out after a pair of high-profile police shootings in Baton Rouge and in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota.
“A message to all my Afro America friends and family. When you are encountered by a white officer make sure that you are in a public place, and comply to all of their commands, because they are looking for a reason to kill a black man,” he wrote on Facebook. “And always keep your hands in the air, and never resist. I’m so tired of cops using these famous words ‘I was in fear of my life.’”
According to the The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said that the department is reviewing the post to see if it complies with the department’s “social media procedure and our rules and regulations,” although there’s a slim chance that this is the case.
Bishop Bobby Hilton, senior pastor of Word of Deliverance Ministries, Forest Park, insists that the situation be taken seriously.
“When there is a hint of this, that we have police officers who have this thought process about black men, these officers have to be dismissed,” said Hilton, president of the local chapter of the civil rights group the National Action Network. “We are now seeing situations in Minnesota and Florida, where black men are doing what they are told by police – putting their hands up, complying with all instructions – and they are still shot.”
Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black has a different take on Officer Vincent, who over the last two weeks has posted a stream of status updates relating to injustices on the force.
“I was very disappointed,” Black said in a statement on the Facebook post Thursday evening. “When we’re in certain positions of responsibility, particularly public safety, we have to adhere to a higher standard of personal conduct. I know the comments depicted on Facebook are not indicative of the men and women who make up police department, nor city government.”