The posting on the Baltimore Police Department's Facebook page seemed innocent enough - a link to a news article about the imperiled mounted horse unit. The chief spokesman put it online, hoping to generate interest and donations to keep the unit alive.
Then the public weighed in.
"Think it over Sheila!" Ian Hall wrote, referring to Mayor Sheila Dixon.
Carol Taylor-Long compared Dixon to former Washington Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr., who had legal troubles of his own: "If anything gets cut, it should be her salary and replace her with a more honest person!"
Ashley Alexander said: "Now she's destroying the city. Pray that her ex has turned enough states evidence in to give her the boot!"
Added Ann Arnold, "I guess she is just going to get rid of what beauty is left, so all we have to look at is a bunch of #1's like herself!"
The "#1" is police code for a black person.
This free-flowing banter was posted on an official Internet publication of Baltimore City, run and moderated by police officials who are flummoxed about whether to delete comments that appear to cross the line.
And there's the problem. Some would say that to delete such comments is censorship. The big questions are, what line and who decides whether it has been crossed?
Is the indictment of the mayor on public corruption charges fair game on an Internet site moderated by the city? Should it publish only comments that say that she's innocent and doing a terrific job? What about people who say that crime is bad and cops do horrible work? Should government bureaucrats be making these decisions at all?
Longtime Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey is leaning against launching a Facebook page for his department.
"I'm truly agonizing over what we would do with comments that do not relate directly to the mission of this agency," he said. "I've been watching the city with great interest. Anne Arundel County has a Facebook page, and they don't seem to generate the same kind of passion that the city does.
"The problem is that when we get comments that are of questionable taste, borderline racist and highly personal, is it up to us to take them off?" Toohey asked. "I don't want to be a censor, but I also don't want to be a soapbox."
