TAVARES, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) -
A Tavares police officer is on paid administrative leave after an alleged posting investigators say appeared on her Facebook page, inferring a threat to the president, around 10:15 Thursday night, during President Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.
The alleged posting reads, "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth when you need them?!?! :)," referencing the men notoriously known for the assassination of presidents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.
"Chief of Police Stoney Lubins was notified by a citizen of an alleged Facebook posting by a city police officer, making a comment about the president of the United States," said Joyce Ross of Tavares PoliceDepartment.
Investigators say the chief was emailed a screen shot of the alleged Facebook post. Now, the department is trying to confirm if Coursey herself actually wrote the post.
"The city takes this extremely seriously. We are doing the internal investigation in line with our personnel policies," Ross said.
That includes notifying the secret service, who made the trip to Tavares to speak with the policewoman face to face today.
"We left it up to them, whether they considered it something that they wanted to investigate and them came this afternoon and spoke with the officer and told us that they would be doing their own investigation," Ross said.
Up until now, Coursey has had a clean record in her year and half with the department and is now on paid administrative leave.
"I think she should be fired," said Eliot Cohen.
Citizens like Cohen say the accusation is simply out of line for law enforcement.
"She's a civil service person, and I think she should know better than to say that, because if somebody else said that, one of us, we'd be arrested and in jail. They'd kick our door down," Cohen said.
