By Police1 Staff
RENTON, Wash. — A police sergeant and deputy police chief have been demoted over a Web cartoon ridiculing a regional jail.
The nearly 9-minute video posted to YouTube in January features a clown refusing to admit a suspect brought in by police. City officials claimed it makes makes fun of policies and staff at the newly-built South Correctional Entity in South King County.
The cartoon clown robotically tells the police officer that the suspect is “too drunk” and “too angry” to be admitted, and later, he says that the jail staff spends most of its time “shirking responsibility and calling in sick for no reason.”
Bill Judd, the sergeant who created the video, was demoted to officer, according to the Seattle Times. Judd argued before a disciplinary committee that his video was meant to be satirical.
The committee demoted Deputy Police Chief Charles Marsalisi, who was accused of teaching Judd how to anonymously post it online. His new position as sergeant will drop his salary from more than $130,000 to approximately $102,000.
Marsalisi told the review board he did not believe Judd would make the video public.
The video “demeaned and ridiculed certain department staff” and harmed the relationship between the Police Department and the jail, Police Chief Kevin Milosevich said in a statement.
Two other officers have been informally reprimanded for viewing the video but taking no action against it, court documents said.