An assistant prosecutor in Wayne County, Michigan–home to Detroit–learned the hard way that you really, really should watch what you say on Facebook. Just four days after taking to Facebook to suggest that Baltimore police should have opened fire on the protesters and rioters in the streets earlier this week, she was forced to resign.
On Monday night at around 10:35 p.m. assistant prosecutor Teana Walsh, who was on maternity leave, took to Facebook with her thoughts on the Baltimore riots:
So I am watching the news in Baltimore and see large swarms of people throwing bricks, etc at police who are fleeing from their assaults … 15 in the hospital already. Solution. Simple. Shoot em. Period. End of discussion. I don’t care what causes the protestors to turn violent…what the ‘they did it because’ reason is…no way is this acceptable. Flipping disgusting.
Walsh apparently realized she’d stepped in it and deleted the post–but not before Cliff Woodards, a longtime defense attorney in nearby Southfield and one of Walsh’s Facebook friends, saw it and took a screenshot of it. The story broke in full on Thursday, when WJBK in Detroit reported on it. Watch here.
Several area attorneys were understandably outraged. On Friday, Progress Michigan, essentially the Michigan version of Daily Kos, demanded that Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy “take quick and decisive action” against Walsh. Just hours later, it was announced that Walsh had called Worthy to offer her immediate resignation–an offer that Worthy accepted.
Officially, the resignation was voluntary. But given the timing, it looks like it was everything but voluntary. Worthy had announced that Walsh had been disciplined. Though Worthy didn’t elaborate, it’s pretty hard to see any scenario under which Walsh could have kept her job. There is no way any prosecutor in any jurisdiction can get away with making comments like this–and certainly not a prosecutor in a county that is over 40 percent black. Apparently Walsh has forgotten that two wrongs have never made a right.
By all accounts, these comments were way out of character for Walsh. Woodards, for instance, said he was “shocked, appalled, and outraged” by the post. He had sparred with Walsh a number of times over the years, and had nothing but praise for her abilities. At the same time, he felt that Walsh’s resignation was the right move, saying that prosecutors cannot “decide you’re going to be judge, jury, and executioner.” After Walsh resigned, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office issued a statement saying that this didn’t sound like the Walsh they’d known over the years.
From where I’m sitting, this looks like a case where one knuckleheaded moment wrecked an entire career’s body of work. If ever we needed a reminder of why you should be really, really careful before you hit the “Post” button on Facebook, this is it.
