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4th Precinct ‘Homeless Quilt,’ ‘Panhandler Patrol’ Post Resurfaces on Imgur Claim An unspecified 4th precinct shared a Facebook post displaying a homeless quilt of cardboard signs seized by a panhandler patrol. Rating True Like this fact check? Reporting On January 5 2021, an Imgur user shared a screenshot of a Facebook post attributed to an unspecified 4th precinct, alongside an image of two uniformed police officers and a homeless quilt of signs confiscated by a panhandler patrol (complete with a thin blue line flag on the wall behind them): User DrVenture420 titled the post Fuck! Can’t even think of a title, while the text of the screenshot read: Wanna wish everybody in the 4th precinct a Merry Christmas , especially our captain . Hope you enjoy our homeless quilt! Sincerely, Panhandler patrol. Portions of the signs were covered, but some visible wording read homeless, need a little help, trying to make it, anything helps, need work need help, and need work need help. The top of the post was cut off (possibly to impede identification of the 4th precinct referenced), but the screenshot was evidently taken about a day and a half after the original post was shared to Facebook. No immediately visible information provided clues about the date the photograph was taken or its location. Both officers lacked masks, suggesting that the image might have been taken before 2020, or that it was possibly taken before masks were in widespread use. Imgur commenters responded to the image: So their response to people in need is to steal their signs? Better than shooting them I guess. Florida is where wokes go to die... Please enable JavaScript Florida is where wokes go to die This is why we can’t have an empathic society. They essential criminalized being poor. Mocking the poor and having a ‘panhandling dept.' Woah, two bad apples in the same department??? What are the odds? This is indecent and disgraceful. These men aren’t fit to serve in that uniform. Americans are fucked up We located a separate version of the screenshot with less cropping, shared on December 30 2019 — making the image at least a year old. Its reemergence in early January 2021 suggested the possibility the image appeared in On This Day or Memories posts from when it first went viral. In that tweet, @spookperson said americans are insanely evil. The same 17 hours had passed, suggesting the 2021 version on Imgur was a cropped version of the one in the tweet. Moreover, the post appeared to have been shared by an individual (Preston, surname redacted), who tagged three other Facebook users in the original post: americans are insanely evil pic.twitter.com/rl90hz44BZ — Quarantine Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) December 30, 2019 On December 30 2019, within three hours of the tweet’s appearance, BuzzFeed published an article identifying the precinct’s location in Mobile, Alabama. A spokesperson for the department said the photograph was definitely immature and insensitive and in [no] way indicative of the department as a whole, and not something that is approved of and practiced. BuzzFeed also obtained a statement from Mobile Police Department Chief Lawrence Battiste about the viral backlash: In a statement on Monday [December 30 2019], Mobile Police Department Chief Lawrence Battiste apologized for the picture, calling it an insensitive gesture. As a police department entrusted with serving and protecting our community, we offer our sincerest apology for the insensitive gesture of a Facebook post by two of our officers where they are holding up a homeless ‘quilt,’ made of panhandling signs, the statement reads. Although we do not condone panhandling and must enforce the city ordinances that limit panhandling, it is never our intent or desire as a police department to make light of those who find themselves in a homeless state. Rather, our position has always been to partner with our community service providers to help us help those faced with homelessness with hope to improve their quality of life. A spokesperson for the department told BuzzFeed News an administrative investigation has been launched over the officers’ actions, which would determine if punitive action, or training, would be recommended for the post. A January 5 2021 Imgur post about the homeless quilt and panhandler patrol prompted a revival of distaste for the original December 2019 post, but lacked both contextual information about the image and chronological detail. The photograph was acknowledged as real by Battiste, who said it was a Facebook post by two of our officers from December 2019. Article Sources + Fuck! Can’t even think of a title. americans are insanely evil Police Officers Used Cardboard Signs Taken From Homeless People As A Gag Gift For Their Supervisor Posted in Fact Checks , Viral Content Tagged homeless quilt , homelessness , imgur , panhandler patrol , viral facebook posts , viral images , viral tweets
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