An East Ellijay police officer is back on the job after being placed on paid leave over allegations he supported racist remarks on social media.
Officer Tommy Long was accused by the Atlanta Antifa of liking posts on Facebook connected to the KKK.
Police Chief Larry Callahan says he was placed on paid leave two weeks ago, as standard policy, while an internal investigation was conducted. But they were unable to substantiate the claims.
Callahan says his department has now taken down its own Facebook page after the department was flooded with racists comments. He’s now working on a policy regarding social media for his entire department of seven.
“We do have evidence that his Facebook page has been hacked. Now can I say that whoever hacked it ‘liked’ those photos instead of him? No, I can’t,” he tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish.
“I’ve not prohibited my officers from having social media pages, but we are really cautioning them. It would be my preference that they didn’t have one,” he says.
The new policy will deal with what steps to take if someone’s page is hacked. He says he’s spoken with other law enforcement agencies and it appears to be a common problem.
“I never thought I’d see a time when this is an issue we’d have to deal with,” says Callahan.