A promising Arkansas police recruit, was only two weeks away from graduating when the Little Rock police reportedly fired her for offensive rap lyrics posted to her Facebook page when she was a teenager.
Local news station WAVY reported that the lyrics to a Lil Wayne song on Katina Jones‘ Facebook page contained a racial slur, which is what triggered the firing. However, Jones’ lawyer Robert Newcomb said that the 25-year-old recruit shared the lyrics on her Facebook page back when she was a 16-year old high school student and hadn’t removed the old post from her private page.
Jones was outed by a fellow recruit, Brandon Gurley, who, is also African-American and had already been dismissed by the department for his own inappropriate social media posts. He admitted to having a friend break into Jones’ private account to discover the details of her previous posts.
Newcomb argued that the department’s decision to fire Jones may have been illegal because of the manner in which they found out about the social media post.
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“She made her account private and Mr. Gurley admitted he had a friend that knew how to break into it,” Newcomb said. “That’s how he got it and sent it to the police department.”
Newcomb also argued that the police department was trampling on free speech with the decision.
“Do we judge the chief and others by the type of music they listen to?” Newcomb asked. “What they need to learn from the absurd position taken by the Little Rock Police Department is that they need to just do away with [Facebook profiles] and give up that [First Amendment] right.”
Newcomb, who has asked the city board and manager to look into whether Jones should be reinstated, pointed out that the city wanted to diversify its law enforcement and firing Jones wouldn’t advance that goal.
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