San Jose: DA says no criminal charges for SJPD cop's anti-protest tweets

[alp227]

Source: Mercury News

SAN JOSE -- The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office said Thursday that no criminal charges are warranted against a San Jose police officer whose combative anti-protest tweets drew wide scorn amid a heated national conversation over police-community relationships.

While cleared of criminal conduct, the police career of Officer Phillip White, a 20-year SJPD veteran, remains in jeopardy. He has been on paid administrative leave since a series of his tweets surfaced on the Buzzfeed website in mid-December.

The most inflammatory tweets read, "Threaten me or my family and I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you. #CopsLivesMatter" and "By the way if anyone feels they can't breathe or their lives matter I'll be at the movies tonight, off duty, carrying my gun."


But the DA's office determined the social-media posts did not constitute criminal threats or any other crime for which they could file charges, primarily because prosecutors could not pinpoint anyone who felt specifically threatened, including those who engaged with White on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_27282922/san-jose-da-says-no-charges

[DRoseDARs]

1. That makes sense, but also doesn't mean he can't face disciplinary action.

Of course he won't. Duh.

[Omaha Steve]

2. That is incorrect

Before I retired (as a uniformed civilian non-sworn) from the Omaha Police Dept a written General Order came out with rules on how all personnel must communicate on social networks. The article doesn't say what the rules are or the union contract states for this dept.

My personal opinion is he gets at least several unpaid days off over this. Waiting on the DA has probably slowed the Internal Affairs investigation from being made public.

[groundloop]

3. Makes sense

I can understand that while these actions may not have broken any laws they may well have been in violation of rules pertaining to conduct.

[Kelvin Mace]

6. His actions do not break any laws as long as

the law is read as narrowly as possible, specifically in a manner that would NEVER be used when gunning down a civilian. You can be damned sure that if a non-policeman made this kind of threat to a cop, they would go to jail.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Fuckin' fake tough-guy coward

Take away his gun and he'd be tweeting jack shit...

[turbinetree]

5. IF I

If I were to do or say what he said I would be in jail in a heart beat, this double standard is what is driving this arena of the haves and the have not's