In early May, the Antioch Police Department disabled public comment on its Facebook page at the request of acting city manager Forrest B. Ebbs, but not before he requested the page be taken down.
According to a public records request made on May 2, emails released reveal that on April 25 Ebbs directed the Antioch Police Department, through the Chief, to cease the use of its Facebook page and to take it down as soon as possible.
Chief Steven Ford objected, highlighting they could not shutdown the page due to timely notices to the community for purposes of sheltering in place, missing children or dependent adult alerts to other important communications to the public. It stood at more than 33,000 followers that would be cut off from communications. He also had concerns over first amendment protections.
Ebbs said in a response to Ford he was uncomfortable of public discussion without moderation.
“I’m uncomfortable hosting a public discussion venue without moderation. The comments both ways are not productive. I would also prefer that we limit messages related to public safety. We should not be driving a parallel conversation or public discourse apart from the City Council. Disabling comments would address that,” said Ebbs in an email.
Ultimately, the compromise was to disable comments and keep the Antioch Police Facebook page active.
Ebbs appears to want the conversation to not occur online and rather in controlled forums while focusing on residents of Antioch, not the world in a public forum. By disabling comments, it allows the city to control how, when and where public input can be provided–such as Coffee with the Cops, City Council meetings or other community forums.
Prior to any decisions being official, in a May 1 response, upon rumors of the social media change coming, Ebbs would only state the following:
“We are internally discussing the best ways to communicate with the public and to promote productive dialogue through social media,” said Ebbs in an email while adding no changes have been made to press releases or media requests.”
Until Monday (May 15), Ebbs had refused to answer questions on if there has been any communications with elected officials regarding the directive to shut down the Antioch Police Facebook Page–its well known Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe has been pushing for the city of Antioch to have a single Facebook page for information.
“The decision was made entirely by me in accordance with the power, duties, and responsibilities of the City Manager’s office,” said Ebbs.
Ebbs also confirmed no other department in the city had been directed to disable social media comments as the community can still comment on the main city page, Antioch Animal Services as well as the Parks and Recreation page.
As of May 15, no other police department in Contra Costa County has disabled the public from commenting on its posts. The City of Oakley is the only city in Contra Costa County where they have one page for all departments to utilize.
A week after the Antioch Police Department was instructed to cease allowing public comments, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced initiating a civil rights investigation into the Antioch Police Department (APD). Chief Ford offered a response that he welcomes this investigation and pledges full cooperation with DOJ officials, just as we have done with the joint FBI-Contra Costa DA investigation already taking place.
Here is a rundown of the emails – or view the PDF ( APD Disable Facebook Comments)
April 25, 2023
Chief,
We will be pursuing a consolidation of communications soon. As such, I am asking you and your department to cease the use of the APD Facebook page effective immediately and would like it taken down as soon as possible.
Forrest B Ebbs
Acting City Manager
April 26, 2023 (10:32 am)
Copy. I will inform the staff and community that all external communications via Facebook are directed to cease.
Steven A Ford
Chief of Police
April 26, 2023 (1:52 pm)
Per your directive, we are preparing to suspect activity on our Antioch Police Department Facebook account. We currently utilize Facebook (along with other social media platforms) to communicate timely notices to the community for the following purposes:
- Shelter-in-place orders which could be related to natural disasters, utility disruptions, armed and dangerous subjects, school lock-downs, and road closures.
- Critical Missing children and dependent adults (often at-risk, autistic, Alzheimer and dementia patients)
- Community appeals for suspect identifications for violent crimes including homicides, fatal hit-and-run accidents, and armed robberies.
- 9-1-1 Center disruptions
- Announcements of important community events including Coffee with the Cops, IACP trust building campaign, and our most recent listening sessions.
- Public Transparency regarding issues concern including police/public interactions and our current and planned reform efforts.
Moving forward, how should we continue to provide these vital 24-hour community notifications?
Additionally, we have 33,039 Facebook followers at the current count, and our posts over the last 28 days have reached 234,936 people. Should we provide some type of advance notice to these numerous community members so they can be made aware of what (if any) social media site they should be directed to?
Please advise how we can best continue to keep our community well informed of these critical matters that are also time and public safety sensitive in nature. Important to also mention is this director for our discontinued use of Facebook places us in direct non-compliance with our policies and procedures? It appears produce that now more than ever we should be adhering to all laws, policies, procedures as currently codified. Moreover, all efforts to restructure and reform the organization will be drastically mitigated; mindful external communication(s) are a critical part of our Department of Justice/Public Safety Partnership Program which was officially codified 4/6/23.
I look forward to your response, and how to best proceed with not just the issue around external communications, but also the very nuanced reform efforts that are underway and ongoing since April 2022. To be clear, all reform efforts are mitigated without our ability to communicate externally. The package of policies, procedures, and best practices (21st Century Policing Pillars) provided to you several weeks ago illustrates that reality.
Steven A Ford
Chief of Police
April 26, 2023 (2:01 pm)
Can you disable the comments? That is my primary concern. I’m uncomfortable hosting a public discussion venue without moderation. The comments both ways are not productive. I would also prefer that we limit messages related to public safety. We should not be driving a parallel conversation or public discourse apart from the City Council. Disabling comments would address that.
Forrest B. Ebbs
Acting City Manager
April 26, 2023 (3:18 pm)
I’m totally on board with your concern about non-productive comments and communications. I truly don’t know if we can disable the comments, but we’ll research that. I’d like to sit down with you when you have a free moment. I think a 15 minute chat will suffice. Please include Thomas, and I’ll include someone from my administrative staff. Looking forward to our conversations. In the interim, we will not post anything on our Facebook platform. I have Mrs. Reinke looped in for coordination.
Please see the noted links identifying the illegally of censuring commentary from the public. These links also illustrate 1st Amendment Violations where government infringes on free speech. In essence, what’s being requested may be unlawful.
https://www.aclusocal.org/en/know-your-rights/social-media-censorship-government-official
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1738/government-use-of-social-media
Steven A Ford
Chief of Police
April 26, 2023 (8:18 pm)
I will set that up. I am familiar with these First Amendment issues. They are triggered when you selectively include or exclude individuals or viewpoints. I would suggest closing all comments to allow a bulletin board rather than a public forum. Thomas can clarify or offer his view on this too. Look for an invite tomorrow
Forrest B. Ebbs
Acting City Manager
May 1, 2023 (10:20 am)
Good morning, I’m circling back to confirm the requisite meeting date and time. To confirm we are not posting anything on our Facebook site until we all convene and work this out.
Steve Ford
Chief of Police
May 1, 2023 (10:37 am)
I will have Susan Set something up. Were you able to find out if we can disable comments?
Forrest B. Ebbs
Acting City Manager
May 1, 2023 (3:14 pm)
We can disable comments to confirm.
Steven Ford
Chief of Police
May 3, 2023 (9:55 am)
Chief,
Thank you for the productive meeting today. To Summarize, APD will continue to use its Facebook page but will have the comments disabled. Residents will be encouraged to use the formal avenues for comments and public participation that APD continues to facilitate.
Sincerely,
Forrest B. Ebbs
9 comments
If Forrest Ebbs wants to cover up that this came from the mayor its his funeral. Control the messaging and distribution of information is from Lamar Thorpe’s playbook. Most people have figured out Thorpe wants to be the sole source of how information gets released to the public. At least Chief Ford is fighting for transparency. Forest Ebbs is nothing but a Thorpe yes man.
Pathetic!
Unfortunate citizens of Antioch have to suffer unbridled hubris of a few on city council.
Remember Ebbs is trying to land this job which we know pays around 250k including benefits. Also if he doesn’t get job he just falls back to his job. Let’s not forget that Lamar seems to be able to shit can whom he wants. Ebbs feeds from the same bucket as do all employees.
Thank you Mike. We would know none of this had you not brought it forward. Mr Epps has always gone what ever direction the wind blows. This has not changed. Thank you Chief Ford for continuing to stand for the community.
If the city doesn’t want banter on their comments then they should disable theirs as well since the spam police hating comments are being made on their page as well. However, like we all know, this is another attempt by Thorpe to silence the police. Trash. Good bad or indifferent he is trash. Transparency must be across the board. Thorpe picks and chooses which posts on his social media can have comments. And shuts them off once he can’t control them.
What is interesting about this is not whether or not APD has such a web page (it really matters little) but rather the fact that it obviously bothers certain people in city government.
Moderation, another word for censorship, PERIOD! If the city wants to censor something have the stones to say it, quit being vague the citizens of Antioch are not ignorant
This Mr Ebbs sounds like a Thorp puppet. What is happening to freedom of speech?? Hopefully his job is only temporary. What other departments do this? None! One of his first decisions is to close comments. Wow! The department needs to get the citizens back on their side and this just going to make things worse. What are they hiding?
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