LaNaydra Williams with her daughter India. Image courtesy of Facebook.
LaNaydra Williams, who lives in Dallas, told Kansas City’s Fox4KC she was rattled by the sinister comment left under a Facebook photo of she and her daughter Friday night. Williams said she received a notification from a name she didn’t recognize and subsequently clicked on the user’s profile to see a uniformed police officer.
According to the Daily Mail, the disgraced officer was later identified as rookie Overland Park Police officer Rodney Lee Wilson. Possibly provoked by the recent deaths of five police officers in Dallas or Williams’ profile picture, which Fox4KC reports as an image of a person dressed in black holding a knife to a police officer’s throat, Wilson directly threatened the Dallas woman’s 5-year-old daughter, India.
“We’ll see how much her life matters soon … better be careful leaving your info in the open where she can be found,” Wilson’s comment read. “Hold her close tonight, it’ll be the last time.”
The message was later deleted.
With the photo of she and her daughter posted to her Facebook profile for the last two years, Williams said she has no idea how or why Wilson found her on social media. The Dallas mother has no ties to the officer or the Kansas city area.
“For this guy to just come out of nowhere, just being disrespectful. How can you be an officer? How, How?,” the Dallas mother told KSHB 41. “It’s unacceptable. For anyone but especially for a police officer. Cops like this don’t value our lives and have the audacity to publicly comment on my child’s picture.”
Williams immediately alerted the Overland Park Police Department, to which they told her the officer’s Facebook page was hacked. They later backtracked, however, after an investigation revealed that Wilson was indeed behind the threatening comments. The officer was promptly terminated from his position, according to a statement released by the police department.
“During the investigation, by our Professional Standards Unit, we learned our officer did in fact make this post,” the statement read. “It was obvious that our officer did not meet the standards of professionalism for the Overland Park Police Department. Overland Park has terminated the officer, effective immediately.”
Overland Park Police Chief Francis Donchez Jr. has since called Williams to offer an apology, Fox4KC reports.
Despite the incident, the Dallas mother said “one bad apple in the bunch” won’t alter her young daughter’s positive perception of police officers.
“Maybe I’ll just say he was one bad cop,” Williams said. “Not all of them are like that. I don’t think she’ll think they’re all like that either way. She loves police.”
