A Florida police officer was terminated from his job on Wednesday, April 11 after a Snapchat photo was handed over to his superiors. During Black History Month, 24-year-old Matthew Moriarty shared a photo of himself with a scribbled on black afro and beard, along with a gun, a dripping syringe and a police car with the Snapchat filter “This is How I Celebrate Black History Month.”
Daytona Beach Shores Public Safety Department Director Stephan Dembinsky took immediate action after receiving the photo, first suspending the office then terminating him, according to Fox News.
“It was [a] terrible thing to do. It was reprehensible. How do you defend that,” the Safety Director told FOX 35 Orlando. Adding, “How do you stay a police officer, when you go to court and testify against the people that you put in jail, and they hold up this picture and ask how can we believe this is unbiased policing?”
All Moriatry’s arrests and traffic stops are under investigation to determine if there were any incidents of racial bias. Dembinsky said, “every chief in America is going through the same thing, and we have to weed these people out.”
