The City of Bozeman is in the news in connection with Facebook again. This time, the city is being sued by Matthew White, who claims that Bozeman Police officers violated his civil rights when they came to his home on Feb. 14, 2009, looking for another man.
The lawsuit names several police officer defendants, including Cody Anderson, the officer White says came into his home without knocking or identifying himself. (Audio of White’s initial interview with police, ~7 min.)
Police ended up arresting White for obstructing and resisting arrest. White’s lawsuit claims that police violated his civil and constitutional rights, were negligent, wrongfully arrested him and caused him emotional distress. Listen to the audio and read the Chronicle story for the details.
The facts of the arrest aside, there’s another kink in the story. The officer, Anderson, has a Facebook profile. On the profile, Anderson apparently posted several paragraphs related to his job as a police officer that complained about “stupid” people and boasted that Anderson liked “messing with people.”
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle printed two paragraphs from Anderson’s profile, which the paper got from White’s lawsuit.
“I think there should be a law saying police can take people to jail for being stupid. Ask a cop a question like, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’ and you get a free ride in a cop car. If I had something better to do, I would be off doing that, and not messing with you. Speaking of messing with people ... I like messing with people. Just being in a patrol car looking at people while parked at a red light is fun. Make eye contact, squint your eyes like you know what they just did and watch them squirm and avoid all further eye contact. It makes my day fun.
“I’m always amazed at what people will tell a police officer. I think people assume we are like priests and it is all in confidence. It’s not. We go back to the office and talk about everything we saw and heard. Then we laugh at people. Usually it is all on audio as well so we listen to stupid things over and over. If we are lucky, it happened in front of a patrol car with its camera on. Then we get to watch it over and over.”
On Monday, Anderson told the Chronicle that “anybody who knows me knows it was a joke” and that “taken out of context, it looks bad.” It certainly does, especially when you’re being sued for your behavior on the job.
My favorite part is that Anderson told the Chronicle that he thought his Facebook profile was only visible to his friends and that “his comments were a joke intended only for them.”
The department told the newspaper that Anderson has been reprimanded and that his postings do not reflect the way the department as a whole feels about the public.
I tried to find Anderson’s page. A search for “Cody Anderson” found three matches in the Bozeman network. Two of the matches had protected their profiles, but their friends lists were still viewable. One of the profiles, which had a profile photo showing a slim, bald man in a suit, had a friends list that contained names I know to be connected to the Bozeman Police Department. This is probably our guy.
Seems like he learned how to make his profile private after all — though I can’t rule out the possibility that it’s been private this whole time and that White or his lawyers found some way around that. I can’t say for sure.
What I can say is this: It doesn’t matter how White’s lawyers got a hold of the paragraphs from Anderson’s profile. They have them, and now they are even more public than they were before. Anderson was as stupid as the people he complains about in the rant if he thought that posting anything to the Web was completely protected or completely private.
His posts show a lack of professional judgement, especially since he’s a peace officer. If he wants to complain about his job, he should not do it online — even on a closed network like Facebook.
Will the Facebook pages help White win his lawsuit? Who knows. But it sure doesn’t make Anderson look good. That’s for sure.
I’m left with a couple questions at the end: Who thought to go searching for Anderson’s Facebook profile? Was it White, who looked up the officer after the fact? Was it his lawyers digging for dirt? Is checking Facebook going to be a common part of filing lawsuits from now on?
Michael Becker has been blogging about academia, digital culture and journalism since 2005. He is the Web editor of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
Police officer’s Facebook postings part of lawsuit against City of Bozeman
The City of Bozeman is in the news in connection with Facebook again. This time, the city is being sued by Matthew White, who claims that Bozeman Police officers violated his civil rights when they came to his home on Feb. 14, 2009, looking for another man.
The lawsuit names several police officer defendants, including Cody Anderson, the officer White says came into his home without knocking or identifying himself. (Audio of White’s initial interview with police, ~7 min.)
Police ended up arresting White for obstructing and resisting arrest. White’s lawsuit claims that police violated his civil and constitutional rights, were negligent, wrongfully arrested him and caused him emotional distress. Listen to the audio and read the Chronicle story for the details.
The facts of the arrest aside, there’s another kink in the story. The officer, Anderson, has a Facebook profile. On the profile, Anderson apparently posted several paragraphs related to his job as a police officer that complained about “stupid” people and boasted that Anderson liked “messing with people.”
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle printed two paragraphs from Anderson’s profile, which the paper got from White’s lawsuit.
On Monday, Anderson told the Chronicle that “anybody who knows me knows it was a joke” and that “taken out of context, it looks bad.” It certainly does, especially when you’re being sued for your behavior on the job.
My favorite part is that Anderson told the Chronicle that he thought his Facebook profile was only visible to his friends and that “his comments were a joke intended only for them.”
The department told the newspaper that Anderson has been reprimanded and that his postings do not reflect the way the department as a whole feels about the public.
I tried to find Anderson’s page. A search for “Cody Anderson” found three matches in the Bozeman network. Two of the matches had protected their profiles, but their friends lists were still viewable. One of the profiles, which had a profile photo showing a slim, bald man in a suit, had a friends list that contained names I know to be connected to the Bozeman Police Department. This is probably our guy.
Seems like he learned how to make his profile private after all — though I can’t rule out the possibility that it’s been private this whole time and that White or his lawyers found some way around that. I can’t say for sure.
What I can say is this: It doesn’t matter how White’s lawyers got a hold of the paragraphs from Anderson’s profile. They have them, and now they are even more public than they were before. Anderson was as stupid as the people he complains about in the rant if he thought that posting anything to the Web was completely protected or completely private.
His posts show a lack of professional judgement, especially since he’s a peace officer. If he wants to complain about his job, he should not do it online — even on a closed network like Facebook.
Will the Facebook pages help White win his lawsuit? Who knows. But it sure doesn’t make Anderson look good. That’s for sure.
I’m left with a couple questions at the end: Who thought to go searching for Anderson’s Facebook profile? Was it White, who looked up the officer after the fact? Was it his lawyers digging for dirt? Is checking Facebook going to be a common part of filing lawsuits from now on?