On Monday (which was the anniversary of something?), the Chelan County Emergency Management's Facebook page shared a picture of a car running down a trio of people. It was captioned "All Lives Splatter: Nobody Cares About Your Protest, Keep Your Ass Out Of The Road."
The post was captioned "I don't wish harm on anyone… but protesters don't belong in the road!" It was shared from a Facebook page called "Libtards; ya gotta love 'em!" It posts pretty much what you expect it to post.
According to the department, the meme was meant to be posted on an employee's personal Facebook page but was published to the department's official Facebook page instead. The post has since been deleted.
Brian Burnett, the Sheriff of Chelan County, issued a formal apology for the meme. "Staff at Chelan County Emergency Management feel terrible that this inappropriate and hurtful post made it onto the Facebook page," Burnett said in the statement. "Changes have already been made in procedure to assure nothing like this will ever occur in the future."
"This post does not reflect the views of the Sheriff's Office and we trust the public will continue to follow us during emergency situations on our page," Burnett added.
He did not identify the employee or say if disciplinary action would be taken against them. However, he did say that the employee in question was an office worker, not a commissioned officer. "There will be an investigative review to follow up on all things and how it was done and what was done," he said.
The meme comes almost exactly a month after James Alex Fields Jr, an attendee at the far-right "Unite the Right" rally and a known associate of white nationalist groups, was accused of running down left-wing counter-protester Heather Heyer and 19 others with his car. Heyer was killed in the incident, which Justice Secretary Jeff Sessions called an instance of domestic terrorism.
