Kent police reposted a disturbing photo on their X account Monday and after alerting the department, Assistant Chief Jarod Kasner said it was a mistake and that the post would be removed.
After the post was up for 40 hours, Kent police deleted its X account, only for it to return a few hours later with an update.
At about 8 p.m. Monday night, KIRO 7 News was alerted to the post.
The post says, “This is going to be the most iconic photo of the war. Hamas terrorist scum defeated by IDF female soldiers, with his head down and tied like a rat.”
The accompanying photo shows two female soldiers, both holding automatic weapons, and one pointing her fingers and mimicking a gun at a man who is nearly nude, with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded.
At 2:48 p.m. Tuesday, KIRO 7 News called and emailed the Kent Police Department. We also emailed Kent Mayor Dana Ralph, sending the following:
Good afternoon,
There is a post on X reposted from the Kent Police Department account referencing the war with Israel and Hamas, showing two female IDF soldiers holding a tied and blindfolded man at gunpoint.
Was this repost intentional? What happened here? How did this happen?
We have attached a screenshot for reference.
Within an hour, KIRO 7 News received a reply from Kent Police Department Assistant Chief Jarod Kasner:
We verified this was accidently reposted. Once it was discovered it was immediately taken down.
Thank you for your inquiry on this.
Throughout the rest of the day and Wednesday morning, KIRO 7 verified the post had not been removed, so we called the Mayor’s office at about 11 a.m.
The Mayor’s office was unaware of our email until we asked them to look for it. Once they saw the email, we were told the post would be addressed. KIRO 7 News also asked for a statement from the Mayor’s office, asking if they condoned this.
We’re still waiting to hear back.
As of 12:25 p.m. Wednesday, the post had been up for 40 hours.
Shortly after publishing this story, the Kent Police Department deleted its X account at about 1:30 p.m.
Later that day on Wednesday, the X account returned, following with a statement from Kent police on their Facebook page:
On Monday, November 25, a photo was accidentally reposted to the Kent Police Department’s X account. The photo depicts two individuals in military uniform detaining a person with a caption that suggests the soldiers are IDF members and the individual being detained is a member of Hamas. The photo was reposted accidentally and was the result of human error – a miss-click of the keyboard. As soon as the error was recognized on Tuesday morning, the photo was removed.
KIRO News first inquired about the report on Tuesday afternoon. The Police Department advised KIRO of the accidental nature of the post and the fact that it had been removed as soon as the error was discovered. The Department learned today that a post may remain in a person’s X feed until the feed is refreshed. The X Help Center states that “undoing a repost will remove it from other timelines, however it may still appear on mobile devices displaying cached timelines.” For this reason, the Police Department temporarily disabled its X account.
The Kent Police Department X account is used to inform followers of major incidents, Department successes, and to warn individuals of safety issues. A review of past posts makes it evident that the post described above had no relation to the work of the Kent Police Department and was made in error.
The Department is currently working to refine its process should an accidental post occur in the future.
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