A Chadbourn, N.C., police officer was fired Tuesday after stirring up controversy with a post made on Facebook, WNCN reports.
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The officer in question, Ricky Soles, told the news station that he was offered the opportunity to resign, but he refused. He was then terminated for violating the law-enforcement code of ethics and for actions unbecoming of an officer, the news site notes.
On Monday, Soles deleted his Facebook account in the wake of a post that many in the community called racist and offensive, WNCN notes. The post read, in part:
You are NOT victims anymoreYou are the bad guys nowYou have your hand out for more freebiesYou won’t take responsibility for yourselfYou have a 74% illegitimacy rateYou are 13% of the population but you commit 65% of the crimeYou produce nothingYou contribute nothingYou take and just want more
“It’s scary, to be honest with you; it’s scary. We’ve got police riding through here every day, and people don’t know what to do, if we should hold our hands up or put their hands down, you know? It’s very sad,” Lena Stephens, a Chadbourn resident, told the news station.
Soles said that his comments weren't his own words but were written by a sheriff in Milwaukee and copied and pasted from a post on the Police One website.
Soles said that the post was referring to criminals in general and not anyone of a particular race.
“That’s just how he related to it—I mean, he didn’t say any color—he related to it because criminals committing murder and violent; at that time, they are criminals,” Soles' wife, Shana, said.
Read more at WNCN here and here.
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