A Twitter account run by the Indianapolis police department used the hashtag #WeCanBreathe on Thursday in apparent mockery of people protesting the chokehold death of an unarmed black New York City man.
The Indianapolis Star newspaper reported on Friday that officer Kendale Adams took responsibility for posting the tweet to the @IMPD_News account. It was eventually deleted but the Star managed to capture this image of it:
The hashtag, posted in response to a critical comment about two arrests police made during a protest in Indianapolis, was a play on the final words of Eric Garner, the man killed in New York: “I can’t breathe.”
Demonstrators across the nation have used the phrase as a mantra this week in protesting a grand jury’s decision not to indict the New York City police officer who killed Garner.
Adams reportedly posted an apology to Twitter and spoke to the Star about the incident.
“Our intent was not what people are jumping on the bandwagon for,” Adams said. “Our issue has nothing to do with Eric Garner. As an African-American officer, why would I touch that issue?”
“We don’t have a doctorate in Twitter,” Adams said. “We’re learning. That was a learning opportunity. We apologize.”
h/t Raw Story
Does this asshole think we’re all that stupid?
And, you don’t need a doctorate to post less than 140 characters, you just have to be smart enough not to post something so mind blowingly stupid and insensitive and expect to get away with it.
I love that they are blaming it on Twitter.
What’s to learn? You type your message, send it out, and then everyone can see it.
Until they hit “delete” when they realized how fucking childish it was.
Does any one know why the middle of the country is so bigoted and racist?
The interesting thing to me is how “We don’t have a doctorate in Twitter” is a blatantly obvious euphemism for lack of impulse control. Certainly this lack of self-control isn’t confined to Twitter; Twitter just happens to be a medium where the blowback hurts a little more than what a subordinate office worker or an abused spouse (or, dare I say, a victim of police abuse) is able to muster.