Who Controls The Sheriff’s Office Facebook Page?
An interesting series of questions were recently posted on the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page by a Facebook user “David Paulson”.
In the lead up to his questions, Mr. Paulson says he was visiting captain William Bailey’s campaign Facebook page when he noticed Bailey seemed to be consistently reposting content from the Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page onto his own campaign Facebook page. This started the gears turning in Mr Paulson’s head and he asked a number of, what we consider, fair questions of captain Bailey.
To Mr Paulson we say: Very observant. Would you like a job at DCSO Follies? The pay is lousy and the benefits non-existent.
Mr Paulson’s questions address the time since captain Bailey became a candidate for Sheriff’s Office, and they boil down to:
- Does Bailey still have control over what’s posted on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page?
- Does Bailey have access allowing him to change content on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, such as hiding unfavorable comments?
- Has Bailey changed anything on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page?
It’s important to remember captain Bailey was the Public Information Officer (PIO) at the Sheriff’s Office for a number of years, and his biography on the Sheriff’s website, states captain Bailey “was responsible for developing our current social media and public information program”.
So it is not unfair to ask if captain Bailey, now the patrol division commander, still has any influence or control over the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, such as by himself directly posting or by influencing or ordering staff to post complimentary content to the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, content he could then repost onto his campaign Facebook page. It is also fair to ask if Bailey used access to the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page to in anyway hide, modify or delete unfavorable comments or content.
To investigate further, we visited the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, as well as Captain Bailey’s campaign Facebook page, and Mr Paulson seems to have a point. There are quite a few posts on Bailey’s page that either directly repost or use content from the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. We provide several examples in below:
We also couldn’t help but notice how often Captain Bailey appears in photos on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page — Even after leaving his role as PIO and becoming the captain of the patrol division. We find this quite unusual.
An example of this is a post from July 4th 2023 posted on the Sheriff Office’s Facebook page. Its content is as follows:
“Today Sheriff L. Shane Nelson and other members of our office cooked pork chops and flipped flap jacks while volunteering at the Frontier Days Woodcutters Breakfast. Every member of our Office believes in community and customer service.”
Despite the above text, 4 out of 5 posted images prominently feature captain Bailey and just one features Sheriff Nelson. Are we the only ones finding this strange?
To be clear, and before we are accused of it, this has nothing to do with Captain Bailey’s election bid. That is neither our focus nor our mission. We leave such commentary to political commentators and the decision on whom to elect to the voters of Deschutes County.
However, We think there are questions to be answered about whether Sheriff’s Office resources or tax payer funds are being used inappropriately or unethically, or indeed in violation of Sheriff’s Office policy.
We therefore must ask: “is it more likely than not” that captain Bailey is using or has used the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page as a tool to further his own election campaign? In our opinion and based on the evidence we have uncovered the answer is yes.
We turn to Sheriff’s Office policy 4.3.4 on Social Media which states in section (IV) paragraph (B):
“Authorized Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office members representing the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office via social media outlets shall do the following:
(e) Not conduct political activities or private business.”
We also note that Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office policy on standards and ethics states:
“Members of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office are granted a public trust, which requires that they consistently demonstrate the highest degree of integrity.”
Surely anyone holding the rank of captain in the Sheriff’s Office should set the example for integrity across the whole organization. Anything less is simply unacceptable.
Let’s be equally clear: When it comes to social media, captain Bailey is, by his own account, the one responsible for developing the Sheriff’s Office social media and public information program. So he is sophisticated enough to know exactly what he Is doing.
So will the Sheriff’s Office conduct an internal investigation of captain Bailey’s social media activities? If so will they use truly impartial investigators? And if he is found in violation of policy will he receive anything more than a slap on the wrist? We highly doubt it on all questions. Unfortunately, the Sheriff’s Office appears to have a history of “rules for thee, but no for me”, where “thee” is the rank and file and “me” is the leadership and those they choose to protect.
This brings us full circle to Mr Paulson’s questions, which we find completely legitimate and to the point. It would be easy enough for Captain Bailey to answer them directly — If only to put all of our minds at ease.
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