WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Broward County Sheriff's officials are promising an investigation into controversial comments made by one of their deputies on the CBS 12 Facebook page.
It began when we posted breaking news on our CBS 12 Facebook page about West Palm Beach motorcycle officer, Keith Gorski, who was hit by a car on Nov. 23.
Gorski remains in the hospital in a medically induced coma after being struck at the intersection of Congress Avenue and Embassy Drive in West Palm Beach Wednesday. But the comments that followed from a Broward County Sheriff's deputy have prompted an internal investigation.
On our CBS 12 Facebook wall Jesus Manuel Perez wrote posts about Officer Gorski who had just been injured. Perez essentially says maybe the officer was trying to mess up someone's day giving them a ticket.. and quote.. "karma got to him real fast."
That post elicited several responses, including one from Broward Deputy Craig Jacobson who wrote "Hey Jesus. Go back to the taco shop where u came from before u see your name sake."
Another person then responded, "yes the original poster is a dummy but "no need to get racial."
Jacobson replied, "If I was going to get racial I would have said something like isn't it low tide, doesn't he have some relatives to pick up."
"We're not going to tolerate that," said Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti.
Sheriff Lamberti says everyone has the right of free speech. But as a deputy?
"That crosses the line. I mean you cannot do that knowing you're a representative of the Broward Sheriff's Office. It's horrendous. It offends me greatly," said Lamberti.
Jacobson's Facebook picture shows him in uniform. He indicated on his personal page, which has since been made "unavailable," that he is a Broward deputy and a former NYPD cop, a fact noted by a poster on the CBS 12 Facebook page. As of Tuesday, he had deleted some of the photos of him in his BSO uniform, removed his work history with BSO and changed his profile picture to him in his high-school football referee uniform.
"Broward County is the most diverse county in the state of Florida," said Lamberti.
Sheriff Lamberti says an internal investigation of Jacobson and his comments is already under way.
CBS 12 stopped at Jacobson's Boca Raton-area home. A cruiser was in the driveway but no one came to the door.
"You can't defend the indefensible. And we're not going to defend it, we're going to investigate it," said Lamberti.
Sheriff Lamberti says internal policies already govern Jacobson's behavior. But the department is in the process of establishing a social media policy for employees.
Read more:
http://www.cbs12.com/articles/facebook- ... z1f9nrMz2M