Nate Silvester, an officer with the Marshal’s Office in Bellevue, Idaho, who mocked basketball legend LeBron James in a viral TikTok video, has been suspended without pay pending an internal investigation.
The video has caused controversy as line officers across the country decry the agency’s action as a violation of the officer’s First Amendment rights.
The problem with the video is not the content, which is a response to James posting a picture of the Columbus, Ohio police officer with the caption, “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY,” The issue is that the officer is wearing his police uniform and appears to be seated in a patrol vehicle.
A Cincinnati, Ohio police officer wore his uniform to a National Rifle Association rally and was disciplined for that act. The case reached the United States Supreme Court who ruled that the officer’s First Amendment rights were not violated because it was not his statements that created the issue, it was that the uniform appeared to indicate the tacit approval of the police agency to the platform of the NRA.
Mr. James seeks a platform to keep him relevant and “trending,” He lives in an alternate world where reality is whatever he wants it to be where ignorance is bliss. He needs to be challenged and laughed out of the real world, but not in the uniform of the employer.
The action of the Columbus police officer was both reasonable and necessary in the given circumstance as time and distance did not permit other option(s). The officer saved serious injury or death to an unarmed female about to be stabbed.
It is sad that people use their celebrity status to espouse trash about topics they know little or nothing about, but that is the world in which we live.
United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.
Harry D. THOMAS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lawrence WHALEN and Edward Ammann, Defendants-Appellants, City of Cincinnati, Defendant.
No. 93-4129.
Decided: April 21, 1995
This case stems from disciplinary action taken by police department officials against a Cincinnati Police Division officer who made several unauthorized public presentations -both oral and written-on behalf of the National Rifle Association, while wearing official insignia and identifying himself as a Cincinnati Police lieutenant. Alleging harassment and retaliation for the exercise of his free speech rights, the lieutenant, Harry D. Thomas, brought a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against his supervisors, Chief of Police Lawrence E. Whalen and Assistant Chief of Police Edward Ammann, as well as the City of Cincinnati. In response to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the district court dismissed the complaint against the City but denied summary judgment to Chief Whalen and Assistant Chief Ammann. They have appealed the district court’s order.
Because we find that the defendants took reasonable administrative action to preclude Lt. Thomas from exploiting his uniform and his position in the police department, while continuing to honor his First Amendment right to debate the propriety of gun control legislation, we conclude that the defendants did not violate a “clearly established right” belonging to the plaintiff. It follows that the two individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from suit and that the complaint against them should likewise have been dismissed. We, therefore, reverse the judgment of the district court.