Denver police officer fired over ‘let’s start a riot’ photo

The Denver Police Department announced this week that it fired a police officer after he allegedly shared a photo of himself and other officers on social media captioned ‘Let’s start a riot” amid local protests in response to the death of George Floyd.

The department tweeted on Tuesday that it decided to fire the officer, Thomas McClay after it launched “an Internal Affairs investigation into a social media post” he made.

UPDATE: #Denver pic.twitter.com/1rxGNbjCfE

— Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) June 2, 2020

“The Internal Affairs Investigation revealed that the officer violated the Department’s social media policy, posted content inconsistent with the values of the Department, and the officer has been terminated,” the office added.

According to local NBC affiliate KUSA, the department’s social media policy bars employees from posting content that “could reasonably be considered to represent the views or positions of this department without written permission from the Chief of Police.” 

The post, which since appears to have been taken down, shows three men standing side by side donning what appears to be riot gear. Some local outlets have still managed to capture a screengrab of the picture, however, which has also picked up traction on Reddit.