Bozeman police officer apologizes for his Facebook remarks

Cody Anderson, the Bozeman police officer who made some unprofessional comments on his Facebook profile, apologized to the department and to the citizens at a press conference Wednesday, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.

Deputy Police Chief Marty Kent:

“We recognize how fragile and important the public trust is ... We had an officer who made a poor decision. I hope the public will not paint the entire agency with the same brush as they have this officer.”

Robert Vanuka, vice president of the Bozeman Police Protective Association:

“This incident has brought discredit and embarrassment to all employees of the Bozeman Police Protective Association, the Bozeman Police Department as well as the City of Bozeman ... The actions of just one officer can weaken public confidence and cast suspicion upon our police department as a whole ... We do not condone this officer’s behavior and it is not representative of” the department.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Diigo
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Posterous
  • LinkedIn
  • Ping.fm
  • Tumblr

Related posts:

  1. Bozeman police officer resigns over comments he made on Facebook
  2. Police officer’s Facebook postings part of lawsuit against City of Bozeman
  3. More on police officer’s resignation over his Facebook comments
  4. City of Bozeman releases report on hiring policy investigation
  5. UPDATED City of Bozeman asks for online passwords for job applicant background checks
This entry was posted in Ethics, Social Networking and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

5 Comments

  1. Julie Wood
    Posted August 24, 2009 at 12:26 am | Permalink

    This whole story has been sen­sa­tion­al­ized. If the real story ever comes out, the pub­lic will real­ize that Officer Anderson fol­lowed pro­to­col in the sit­u­a­tion asso­ci­ated with the law­suit. Every work­ing day, he is poten­tially risk­ing his life to pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Bozeman and of Montana. It is more of an embar­rass­ment and a shame that the police depart­ment and the city of Bozeman is not sup­port­ing an offi­cer who has been faith­fully serv­ing the pub­lic for years. His per­sonal com­ments on his per­sonal social net­work­ing page should never have been brought into this.

    • Posted August 24, 2009 at 3:51 am | Permalink

      But his com­ments have been made a part of it now. He acted irre­spon­si­bly by post­ing com­ments like that on his pro­file, espe­cially given his posi­tion as a pub­lic ser­vant. Sure, he has a right to free speech, but that speech has to be tem­pered by the con­text and his own sense of pro­fes­sion­al­ism — a sense that appears to have been cast aside how­ever briefly on Facebook. Regardless of whether the com­ments end up hav­ing a bear­ing on the law­suit, the sit­u­a­tion has opened up a new area of dis­cus­sion: should pub­lic offi­cials’ social net­work­ing pro­files be mon­i­tored? Do those offi­cials really have free­dom of speech on those sites? Where is the line between appro­pri­ate and inappropriate?

    • Fire Cody Anderson
      Posted August 31, 2009 at 5:49 pm | Permalink

      Wow Julie! Are you from California? I live in Bozeman for a rea­son!! There are some won­der­ful officer’s on the Bozeman Police force who do their job well. You say Mr. Anderson’s ” Personal com­ments on his per­sonal social net­work­ing page should never have been brought into this!” What on earth are you talk­ing about? His whole view is to “Harass and Incarcerate” NOT ” Serve and Protect” and he brags about it! If you have ever been pulled over by Mr. Anderson you would have expe­ri­enced his extreme “Bravado and ego­tism” the law­suit states. This guy makes all the good officer’s in town look hor­ri­ble by staing “we” all over his face­book page....implicating the whole depart­ment. This guy is out of hand and needs to be fired!! You and I have rights that this paid “pub­lic ser­vant” does not rec­og­nize. If I entered a home illegally(which I would NEVER even dream of!), I would be in jail and I would lose my job. But this guy is not being fired? No won­der Mr. Anderson thinks he can do what­ever he wants and abuses his power! If I were you, I would recon­sider what you have posted here!

  2. Bozemanpublic
    Posted September 3, 2009 at 5:14 pm | Permalink

    We as a smart pub­lic whole..SHOULD ques­tion the entire police force...its not just one bad apple..its many!!!

  3. Bozemanpublic
    Posted September 4, 2009 at 12:14 am | Permalink

    We as a smart pub­lic whole..SHOULD ques­tion the entire police force...its not just one bad apple..its many!!! Think about it....one offi­cer get­ting away with this kind of behavior....other offi­cers LETTING HIM or encour­ag­ing it!! Bozeman police have done a good job...BUT...we should at least check into this alot DEEPER!!

One Trackback

  1. [...] was in the best inter­est of the city and the police depart­ment. This comes after Anderson pub­licly apol­o­gized in [...]

blog comments powered by Disqus