WINDSOR, ONT. -- Windsor police say they were mistakenly tagged in more than 100 posts on social media after a recent situation involving police in Windsor, Virginia had many voicing their concerns online.
Windsor Police Service communications officers received an influx of mentions on Twitter after a violent traffic stop in Virginia was caught on camera.
“When we started noticing that we were getting tagged on these social media posts, we realized this was a situation that was seemingly going viral so to speak, and we just wanted to stay ahead of that and make sure people knew we were the wrong police service getting tagged in these posts,” Const. Talya Natyshak said.
Police in Windsor Virginia, have been accused of using excessive force in a traffic stop where a Black U.S. Army officer was pepper sprayed and pushed to the ground.
The driver is now suing the police force and one of the officers has been fired.
Over a three-day period, WPS responded to more than 100 posts to let commenters know they had tagged the wrong police force. Other social media users had also stepped in to correct them on the service’s behalf.
“It was definitely a little unexpected as we started noticing our notifications on our social media kind of going a little bit crazy,” Natyshak said. “So it was kind of a busy time over the weekend as things were progressing pretty fast.”
She said many of the comments tagging WPS contained “misdirected hate and frustration.”
“Some of these comments that we were tagged in, they didn’t have context to them. They maybe didn’t show the video, they didn’t state really what it was about it was just comments on their own with us tagged,” Natyshak said. “It’s just important, it’s not us and we want people to know that’s not the Windsor Police Service.”
She said the comments have slowed down since the onset with WPS staying ahead of the social media situation.
