President of police union chapter in Florida suspended after 'despicable' Facebook post
Source: USA Today
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Bert Gamin, the president of a Fraternal Order of Police chapter in Florida has been suspended with pay from his position with a local sheriff's office, pending an internal affairs investigation into the "unprofessionalism" of a Facebook post recruiting officers disciplined and charged in violent incidents, an official announced Tuesday.
"Yesterday afternoon I authorized an internal investigation into (Gamin's) actions. He has been suspended, pending the outcome," Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said at a news conference. Ivey called Gamin's Facebook post "despicable" and "disgusting."
Gamin, a lieutenant with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and president of the Brevard County FOP, faced several days of public outrage and attacks on social media for several posts made from the Facebook page of a local lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. The FOP is a national police union organization representing over 300,000 law enforcement officers across thousands of local "lodges."
One post, made on June 6 at 1:21 a.m. called on officers connected to two violent incidents between police and protesters in Buffalo, New York and Atlanta, Georgia to apply for jobs in Florida. That post, along with a second one recruiting Minneapolis police officers, were both deleted on Monday. On Monday afternoon Gamin posted an apology to the page, but it was removed that night.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/09/fraternal-order-police-chapter-president-bert-gamin-suspended/5327923002/
This is the clown that offered to hire cops who were fired for misconduct!
Wonder if he can hire himself?
= new reply since forum marked as read
There's no doubt that through the years, thousands of these internal investigations have been cover-ups or just "the public will forget all about it in a month or so" or "hell, they can't afford lawyers to pursue it", etc.
Nowadays, when these events go viral in the internet, they're much less likely to be forgotten and many victims are actually receiving financial support via the web in order to get justice.
I'm totally against "trial and execution" by internet, but we can at least keep long-term pressure on officials to do the right thing.
The key to success: Almost every time, local officials take prompt action as a result of public outrage only because they do not want their local economy or town reputation damaged by the media exposure.
Follow the money, as always........
