LOGAN COUNTY, Colorado — Every Wednesday, the Logan County Sheriff’s Office posts mugshots of wanted suspects to its official Facebook page in hopes the community can help find them.
It’s called “Warrant Wednesday,” but unfortunately, the last few posts have been deleted. The reason? According to the sheriff’s office, it’s “keyboard warriors trash talking each other.”
“We will not stop doing Warrant Wednesday because we have seen proven results from it,” a Jan. 16 Facebook post from the Logan County Sheriff’s Office says. “However, going forward if you become engaged in trash talking about who has more baby daddies, or the biggest drug problems, or how tough you are behind the keyboard, use nasty language, etc … we will block you from our page!”
People did ask the sheriff’s office why they can’t just turn off commenting on their posts.
“We don’t want to do that at this time, adults can learn to be adults on social media,” the sheriff’s office said.
Point taken.
With that being said, this post led us to wonder: can the sheriff’s office block people on Facebook in the first place? Last year, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a public official’s Facebook page is a “public forum” – meaning that they can’t block people just because they have criticism or dissenting opinions.
That’s different from blocking someone for trolling or disrespectful comments, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). And that’s what’s happening during Warrant Wednesday.
The last Warrant Wednesday post was on Christmas Eve (it was technically a Tuesday). One of the comments wished the suspect, who was wanted on drug charges, a belated happy birthday (he was born on Dec. 22).
Another comment included the line “all I want for Christmas is some Methamphetamines.”
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