A Dallas police officer is under investigation for a social media post he made following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
“Aim better,” Sgt. Arturo Martinez reportedly wrote in a social media post that was shared with WFAA via screenshot.
The Dallas Police Department confirmed to the news outlet that Martinez has been put on administrative leave pending an internal investigation because of the post.
Like other sentiments expressed by anti-Trump leftists online, the post seemingly approved of the assassination attempt and wished it had succeeded.
Trump was shot in the ear by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who fired several shots at the former president during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, as covered by The Dallas Express.
DPD received an internal complaint on July 13 “regarding a member of the Dallas Police Department and a comment made on a social media platform,” per WFAA.
“When I received the notification regarding the comment posted, disappointed would be an understatement,” DPD Chief Eddie Garcia said in a statement, per NBC 5 DFW. “If, in fact, true, the comment made has no place in our society and certainly no place in law enforcement. The comments made, if confirmed, certainly do not reflect the professionalism and dedication of the men and women of the Dallas Police Department.”
Martinez’s attorney, Jane Bishkin, told The Dallas Morning News that her client was acting as a private citizen on his personal social media account, which did not identify him as an officer. She added that posting a comment is something that “he has a 100% constitutional right to do.”
She also told DMN that the post was a “misunderstanding,” claiming he was referring to the Secret Service rather than the former president.
“Police officers always also have a right of freedom of expression,” Bishkin told DMN. “The statement itself was innocuous, and for people to turn that into something more than what it was, really, that’s going to turn us into a police state.”
Martinez has been with DPD since 2010 and works in the robbery unit. He is listed as the secretary of the Dallas branch of the National Latino Law Enforcement Organization.
DPD has been hampered by a staff shortage, which has dampened its efforts to fight crime. The department has only around 3,000 officers, but a prior City analysis recommends it needs around 4,000.
Meanwhile, DPD was only allotted a budget of $654 million this fiscal year, much less than what other high-crime cities like Chicago and New York planned to spend on their police departments.