Cops show hostility in private Facebook group

Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom page has since been removed

PITTSBURGH — In a private Facebook group called the Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom, many current and retired officers spent the year criticizing chiefs who took a knee or officers who marched with Black Lives Matter protesters, whom they called “terrorists” or “thugs.” They made transphobic posts and bullied members who supported anti-police brutality protesters or Joe Biden in a forum billed as a place officers can “decompress, rant, share ideas.”

Many of the deluge of daily posts were jokes about the hardships of being officers, memorials to deceased colleagues or conversations about training and equipment. But over the group’s almost four-year existence, a few dozen members became more vocal with posts that shifted toward pro-Donald Trump memes and harsh criticism of anyone perceived to support so-called “demoncrats,” Black Lives Matter or coronavirus safety measures.

A few members of the group also were bullied or left the page, including an officer who said the Fraternal Order of Police’s Trump endorsement did not represent her and a Black officer who was accused of creating a fake Facebook account to complain about the lack of diversity in local departments.

The Associated Press was able to view posts and comments from the group, which has 2,200 members, including about a dozen current and former police chiefs — from mainly Allegheny County and some surrounding areas stretching into Ohio — and at least one judge and one councilman. After the AP began asking about posts last week, the group appeared to have been deleted or suspended from view.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said Monday the group was removed “for violating our policies” before the AP published its story, but could not say whether it came after a complaint or as part of routine monitoring. Last year, Facebook released an update to its community standards: “People turn to Facebook Groups to connect with others who share their interests, but even if they decide to make a group private, they have to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

Contacted by the AP, Lincoln Borough Police Chief Richard Bosco said departmental policy prohibited Huschak from talking to the media. He said the officer is known for his service to the community and wasn’t aware that others had posted insults under his post or that things had “gotten out of hand.”

“He understood the concerns and he deleted the post,” Bosco said. “There is and there needs to be a higher professional standard for police, especially when it comes to social media.”

Trieu defended his comment, telling the AP that he was merely advising other officers in the group that, just like community members can complain about officers, they could file a grievance with a dispatcher’s supervisor if they feared for their safety.

Concerns about explicit bias on officers’ social media accounts were renewed in the last year after a summer of protests demanding an end to police brutality and racial injustice in policing and pro-Trump protests in January that led to a violent siege on the Capitol.

The private Facebook page showed embattled officers hostile to criticism and doubling down on policing as it currently exists, with many posts and comments possibly violating some department social media policies that prohibit disparaging comments about race or that express bias or harass others.

Joe Hoffman, a West Mi±in Borough Police officer, posted a criticism of Webster, Mass., Police Chief Michael Shaw, who lay on his stomach on the steps of his station for about eight minutes — a reference to George Floyd dying after being held on the ground by Minneapolis police.

“If you are a law enforcement officer and you kneel or lie on the ground so easily over the false narrative of police brutality, you will one day be executed on your knees or your stomach without a fight by the same criminals that you are currently pandering to,” he wrote, calling the organization “Black Lies Matter.”

Hoffman did not return requests for comment left with the police department or a phone number listed in his name.