Washington officer placed on leave after urging police not to enforce stay-at-home orders

Greg Anderson
Greg Anderson
A Washington state police office set an official on managerial leave after he encouraged fellow law authorization members not to implement stay-at-home requests in a viral Instagram video.

Port of Seattle Officer Greg Anderson stated that he has no second thoughts after posting the nine-minute video of himself in his watch car, KOMO-TV announced.

“I’m seeing people arrested or cited for going to church. I don’t know what crime people are committing to doing nails in their own house … we have to ask ourselves as officers, ‘Is what I am doing right?'” Anderson said in the video. The post has since gone viral, with more than 750,000 views as of Wednesday.

“I don’t want to see the citizens get to a point where we have to defend our constitutional rights against the government,” Anderson stated.

His message comes as protesters contradicting their express governors’ stay-at-home requests have raged state legislative halls, resisting governments’ direction on social separating. Now and again, demonstrators have been arrested.

The Port of Seattle Police Department presented on its Facebook page Tuesday that Anderson was put on paid administrative leave pending an examination.

“As a police officer wearing one of our uniforms, his right to speech has restrictions on which he has been well-trained and that he has understood since joining the policing profession… But, he is not allowed to do so while on duty, wearing our uniform, wearing our badge and while driving our patrol car,” the post read in part.

Anderson stated that he’s being blamed for disobedience since he’s declining to bring down the video.

While Anderson has his faultfinders, he said shockingly, the majority of his supporters are fellow officials.

“I’ve been getting contacted by police officers all over the country, saying ‘thank you,'” he stated.

Anderson is presently getting ready for a consultation in the following couple of days that could decide his future with the office.