Police department receives Facebook messages by mistake

The Vermilion Police Department has received multiple “hate” messages and mail over the past couple of days, and it is fighting back.

These comments have been geared toward an incident where a teacher was handcuffed and arrested for questioning a school superintendent pay raise during a board meeting.

The problem, however, is the incident occurred in Vermilion Parish, La., and not in Vermilion, Ohio.

“It has certainly been an interesting couple of days,” said Vermilion police Chief Chris Hartung. “We have never really dealt with a mix up like this.

“Occasionally, you might get a mix-up with employee applications and messages, but it is quite rare.”

Hartung said it began when it started getting posts on Facebook Messenger.

“The messages started with sarcasm, but then quickly turned into hate mail,” he said. “We received one where the poster said he was glad he doesn’t have to deal with the police in our state and country.

“I replied saying it wasn’t us and he basically was like, ‘Oh, my bad...lol’. Those are the type of posts we’ve been getting and most of them have responded in a similar fashion.”

Not all the posters have been apologetic, however, and some have made the distinction and still posted against Vermilion police.

Harung posted, “The teacher was arrested in Vermilion Parish in Louisiana. This is Vermilion in Ohio. Please stop sending us your hate mail.”

Casie Reddell, on Facebook, replied with, “’Hate mail’? Sounds like you agree and this is a perfect example why police are not respected. You protect the bad ‘brothers’ instead of calling them out. I bet your department would have treated her the same or might even tased her.”

Hartung said the amount of people viewing the page is now at 37,000.

“It has definitely brought a good amount of traffic to the page,” he said. “These people go on and post what they want because it’s anonymous.