Covered by ABC News earlier today, 30-year-old Melissa Walthall of Mesquite, Texas faces a felony retaliation charge after allegedly using her Facebook account to upload a photo of an undercover police officer. According to Mesquite police, Walthall posted the photograph of the narcotics officer on Facebook after he testified against 34-year-old George Pickens during a drug trial that occurred two months prior to the incident. In the caption of the photo, Walthall specifically mentioned that the officer was working undercover and posted “Anyone know this [expletive]?” in the description. It’s likely that Walthall was attempting to use social media to figure out the identity of the officer and subsequently spread that information rapidly online.
While Walthall’s Facebook profile was set to private, Mesquite police learned of the photo after one of Walthall’s Facebook friends spotted the photograph with the revealing caption within their News feed. The unnamed person immediately notified police and supplied the police department with a copy of the photo. After questioning Walthall, police learned that the photo had been supplied by Pickens.
After searching online, Pickens had discovered the photo on Facebook without any tag to identify the undercover officer’s personal Facebook account. Opposite from Walthall, his idea for social distribution to reveal the officer’s true identity was far less technologically advanced. With the help of his brother Bobby Stedham, Pickens made photocopies of the photo in the style of a lost cat or garage sale flyer. The duo planned to post the photo around local neighborhoods or pass it out on street corners.
When police searched the home where Pickens was residing, they discovered copies of the handout clearly outing the officer as undercover. They also discovered an unregistered sawed-off shotgun underneath the bed where Pickens slept as well as 28.6 grams of methamphetamine and a variety of equipment for drug distribution. For his role in the creation of the flyers, Stedham also faces a felony retaliation charge.
Detailed in the Texas Penal Code, retaliation is defined as “A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly harms or threatens to harm another by an unlawful act in retaliation for or on account of the service or status of another as a public servant, witness, prospective witness, or informant.”
However, authorities didn’t indicate if Walthall or Stedham will face significant jail time for their role in attempting to reveal the identify of the undercover officer that testified at Pickens’ trial.
Regarding the publication of the photo on Walthall’s Facebook profile, Texas Municipal Police Association executive director Kevin Lawrence stated “It’s a very dangerous situation. If you’re trying to infiltrate a cartel, a drug ring, a gang, one of the keys is people have to believe you’re not an officer. Anything that hints at tying you to law enforcement is very dangerous.” Regarding social media accounts among police officers, Lawrence continued “There are too many opportunities for bad things to happen in exchange for very little up side. But the fact the officer shouldn’t have had a Facebook doesn’t excuse her either.“
All you cop haters are so ignorant. Yes, there are good cops and corrupt ones. You don’t lump them all together. Otherwise should I lump human beings in general into a category just because we have some psychopaths who like to hurt and kill? Guess that means human beings are all worthless and should be extinct.
If you really need to question why she did what she did, then you are obviously naive. If you hate cops so much, go live in a country where there are no cops and see how fast your life will be put in danger and how fast you’ll be begging for there to be cops around. Go live in that part of Mexico if you love your drugs so much and watch their police get killed, their news reporter are afraid to even mention a cartel for fear they might get their heads chopped off and made an example of.
I for one will live here happily in this so called “police state”. I will choose this over Mexico or any country over the Middle East. No drug cartels running the city, no rebels terrorizing me as their inadequate police officers are forced to stand about unable to help me.
The reason why we have people in the police force unfit to be police is because we treat them like crap with bad pay. You offer to pay a guy what… 17k a year (or some other stupid low salary) to risk his life to try to protect you? Of course we aren’t going to get many volunteers jumping at the opportunity. And with such low enrollment, the city can’t pick and choose who they want on the force. The only people that will apply are the gun happy bullies. Offer a higher salary and you’ll get more applicants. Not all will be qualified but at least then the city can screen for the good ones. Because the way it stands, the only option they have is unqualified cops or no cops. Both a lose-lose situation.
No, I’m not a cop lover but I don’t hate them either. They are human beings and some human beings have a good heart and some are the scum of the earth (and mostly selfish, self righteous and/or judgmental) and we occupy all walks of life, all jobs…
“Those who trade liberty for safety deserve the benefit of neither.”
Benjamin Franklin
Cute! But I don’t think Benjamin Franklin was against policemen. There were already policemen in Revolutionary War times. The quote came from a discussion about the Tea Act and how the Colonialists should respond to England.
Still, it applies. And policing the tattoos and ideas expressed on someones’ skin is a direct breach of Freedom of Expression, which is protected..
I’m not saying that I agree with the tattoo, nor am I saying I do not. I am saying that this is stomping around where angels fear to tread, and I do not want to be a party to it-even further, I fail to see such a blowhard tactic as this, as amounting to a credible threat.
Just because we do not like something, does not mean we should ever allow government an abuse of power. It is dangerous, and I reject it.
Or the posting of a picture or any action that is not, in fact, a violation of law. If we want to do away with the Constitution, ALL of us, then by ALL means, arrest her A$$. Until then, law applies to ourselves, this lady, the police and the courts. Same laws…for EVERYONE.
If she did not break a law, they cannot apply this statute secondary to her NON-lawbreaking. She has to, by viryue of this statute, committed an act that violated the law.
And just as an aside-I don’t know what area you hail from-but they are pretty picky about whom they hire around here. In fact, only the best pedophiles, a$$ kissers, blind guys, and liars need apply. And those who do had better well know their place, or they will be sanctioned, censured, lose their retirement, face charges, or be accused of “frivolous lawsuits”.
So yeah-it’s a dirty job…but it allows you to buy a $40,000 home for $1, so it has a few perks. And that is just ONE of them.
You are disgusting if you really think that any of what you wrote would make someone like me, or anyone who knows how cops behave and how they violate civil rights everyday of their careers. Most cops are nothing more than violent bullies who think they are above the law. You obviously are one of those type cops or are married to one. Go spew your garbage about how life would be so horrible without a bunch of thug pigs to “protect and serve” the greater society in general. Cops are nothing more than over payed bullies who most often have an “us against them” mentality. You are NOT above the law and you are never worth the money that your stupid unions and guilds demand from the taxpayers. You are also a liar proven by fact that you claim you are not a cop lover. Yes you are, LIAR PIG LOVER .
I used to be willing to believe that most officers were decent people, wanting to make the world a better place.
Then I talked with someone who used to be a chief of police, & he told me that about half were bullied in school & never got over it, so turned into bullies themselves.
Also, I’ve been wrongfully arrested twice (wrongfully as in I hadn’t broken a law, wrongfully as in the cops lied through their teeth in their reports & in one case 3 of them lied in court). I haven’t been convicted of anything, & I’ve won civil rights lawsuits against a couple police departments because of their bad acts.
So now I’m much more cautious.
Since there’s no way to tell a decent cop from an abusive one by looking, I’ll treat them all with great caution until they prove they’re decent Constitution-respecting folks.
they also tend to take a man’s word over a woman’s.
My neighbor was messing with my dogs, kept feeding them food over the fence even after i asked him to stop, and revving his motorcycle right next to the fence, etc, making them howl and fight each other. This was the same neighbor we stopped their place from getting broken into, twice. The jerk guy lied to me saying he didn’t do it. On another day, he did it, but this time my husband saw him. He lied to my husband when my old man confronted him, said he didn’t do it. I later chewed the neighbor out and scattered nails where he kept pulling his harley up to the fence, on our property, and told him next time someone tried to break in I’d pretend to be blind. He accused me of setting him up to be robbed. He called the police on me. The cops told me I needed to have a beer and chill out. WTF.
Find me a cop who isn’t willing to follow orders to arrest peaceful people who’ve harmed no one.
Otherwise, ACAB.
“Yes, there are good cops and corrupt ones. You don’t lump them all together.”
Agreed. It is unfair to let four or five hundred thousand bad apples spoil the whole barrel.
Stop making excuses, you may the idiot here look in the mirror.
“There are good cops & corrupt ones”
And they’re impossible to tell apart by looking.
If they won’t police themselves, speaking / acting against the bad cops who endanger the rest by turning pubblic opinion against them, they’re all bad.
no matter wat job u chose u kno the risk and he kne the risk right or wrong he kne the risk yes we need police but wen these adrenaline junkies that work for the police they kno wat they gettn into so tell the cop to get a desk job it just change another face on the street
What a bunch of ignorant comments. Those CRIMINALS are participating in hard drug activity (not just a little baggie of pot), and are in possession of illegal weapons that obviously werent altered that way for hunting. The officer risked his life already to infiltrate them… now he gets his face plastered all over the drug scene, identified as a cop, and passively threatened, simply for testifying against a criminal… yet you people side with the druggies? What do you think their intent was? Going to his house for tea and crumpets? Disgusting. You’re whats wrong with our country. Zero personal responsibility. Blame everyone else other than who’s responsible. Protect the criminals, then whine that the police never do anything. I’ll tell you what… since you all hate cops so much, next time you need help, call a druggie. It’s a win-win. You get your hero, and the police will be available for the people who actually appreciate them.
the officer risk his life and also got paid.
If he doesn’t want to be in danger………..he can get a job a walmart
Hey DA, I see you are another druggie defender. Sheesh
Defending the Constitution is not being a “druggie defender”. You need to learn how to separate the issues at hand.