After he was arrested by Columbus, Ohio police, a man who saw his own mugshot on the department’s Facebook page jumped to defend himself and criticize his arrest.
Willie Tatum III was arrested at his mother’s home after he allegedly refused to respond to police demanding that he exit the home and identify himself.
Tatum was arrested and later released, but once he got home he noticed his mugshot posted on the department’s Facebook page. This spurred the suspect to mount a defense of himself in the comments section.
“Too bad I’m already out. How do I break in my mom’s house with a key? When I tried to show the police my key, they pulled guns on me and my brother so we stayed inside. The charge changed 3 different times while inside. SWAT for a ‘dv’? Come on now,” he wrote.
Tatum’s comment, though, disappeared after a few hours, prompting the police department to assure readers that they had not censored the comment.
“The Columbus Division of Police reserves the right to remove any content for reasons including, but not limited to, comments that contain obscenities, off-topic comments and personal attacks,” the department wrote on its Facebook thread.
“Mr. Tatum’s comments did not fall under this policy and were not removed by the Division of Police,” the message continued.
The Columbus SWAT team said that the original incident at the Tatum home ended “without incident.”
“23-year-old Willie Tatum III is charged with aggravated menacing & domestic violence,” the police department noted. “He was involved in a 4 hour standoff with CPD at a home on Dartmouth Ave. (near east side) last night. CPD’s Hostage Negotiation Unit & SWAT Unit arrested him without incident.”
Some Facebook commenters criticized the police for sending a SWAT team in the first place ,and many assumed the department had deleted Tatum’s comment.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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