Nearly 200 police officers in the United Kingdom have received official disciplinary action for posting inappropriate photos or comments, including racist slurs, on Facebook.
Cops used Facebook to harass former partners and colleagues, comment on others' wives and, like millions of people around the world without badges, to post inappropriate photos.
One officer with the Hampshire, England, force was fired in 2008 for posting a racist comment; another officer was fired for calling another officer a "liar" on Facebook and harassing a female colleague, the U.K. Press Association reported.
The details, obtained by the Press Association following a Freedom of Information Act request, tally formal complaints lodged against officers from 41 police forces in England and Wales from 2008 to 2010.
Along with the two sacked officers, seven voluntarily quit and 150 more faced disciplinary action for their Facebook follies; officers' other infractions include posting messages suggesting they had beaten up members of the public during protests, trying to befriend victims of crime and revealing details of police operations.
One officer, Nestor Costa, of Devon and Cornwall Police, was docked three days pay after posting a Facebook message, full of abusive language and curse words, calling for violence against a suspect in custody.
Roger Baker led a government review into police corruption among U.K. officers; he told The Sun : "We found a significant blurring between people's professional lives on social networking sites and their private lives which may be in the public domain and private lives which probably should remain extremely private."
