The Shively, Kentucky police department
has fired a recruit over racist and homophobic tweets he made between
2015 and 2017.
Shively Lt. Col. Josh Myers announced
the firing during a press conference held on Wednesday.
Myers called the Twitter posts made by
Trent McDuffie “intolerable” and “wrong.”
According to WDRB.com,
McDuffie said in one of the posts that he hated gay men. Other posts
included images of KKK members and racist and homophobic slurs.
"The Shively Police Department
strives to maintain a good working relationship with all persons of
the community," Myers said. "[We] do not condone, nor will
we tolerate, any actions on the part of our members that is
insensitive or intolerant of any person's beliefs, color, sexual
orientation, political opinion or otherwise. All people have the
right to be treated equally, and we make every effort to do so."
Myers said that the department
scrutinized other social media accounts prior to hiring McDuffie but
was unaware that he had a Twitter account. He said that the
department was made aware of the posts by a local media outlet.
Myers added that McDuffie admitted to
posting the messages and was remorseful.