Jacob Smith was settling into the first day as a police officer in Pleasant Hill, Missouri on Monday. All the formalities had been done: he was sworn in, the “welcome the new hire” email had gone out to the town’s employee list, and the department had announced the new hire on its Facebook page.
And according to the Atlanta Black Star, that’s where it went bad for Smith: someone replied by posting a link to Smith’s social media accounts. Sprinkled in the endorsements of right-wing views and politicians, Smith had posted comments and memes espousing violence and racism, including one about decapitating Black people, made less than a month previously.
Smith’s job with the Pleasant Hill Police Department–and hopefully his career as a police office–ended at 1 a.m. local time Wednesday when he was fired. “This is totally our fault. We traditionally do a very comprehensive background. This time we failed to do so,” Pleasant Hill Police Chief Tommy Wright said in an interview with a local television news outlet.