Left: Clark County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant John Rodgers (Clark County Sheriff’s Office). Right: Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at Little Chute High School, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Little Chute, Wis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A sheriff’s deputy in Ohio is backpedaling after a series of social media posts in which he said he would not help people who support the Democratic Party while comparing the party’s presidential standard-bearer to a heavily antagonistic character from the Bible.
Clark County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant John Rodgers got in hot water late last week with a series of four posts on Facebook.
A 20-year veteran of the agency, with some 27 years of combined law enforcement experience, the deputy’s latest role was Uniform Patrol Commander in 2023, according to his county biography.
“I am sorry,” the deputy allegedly posted on Oct. 20. “If you support the Democrat Party I will not help you.”
A later post used the party’s preferred self-nomenclature: “The problem is that I know which of you supports the Democratic Party and I will not help you survive the end of days.”
Yet another post, however, suggested the deputy might have a difficult time parsing out voting record or intention.
“At the end of the day I will require you to provide proof of who you voted for if you ask me for help,” the more vague of the four posts reads. “Weapons and ammo are not cheap.”
The biblical-themed post is, in some sense, more directly to the point — and appears to encapsulate the general theme, if not tenor, 0f the controversial posts. It reads: “Kamala Harris represents Satan.”
The posts predictably caused a media uproar and public outcry — some of the messages were reportedly shared in excess of a quarter of a million times, according to Dayton-based CBS affiliate WHIO.
In a lengthy comment to the TV station, Chief Deputy Mike Young addressed the offending Facebook posts.
“It is understood that while these comments are highly inappropriate, they in no means reflect the Clark County Sheriff’s Office delivery of service to ALL our community and does not reflect the mission and values of the Sheriff’s Office,” the superior officer said. “The community has a right to be upset over the actions of Lt. Rodgers and he, as well as the Sheriff’s Office in general, will have to work even harder to replenish the trust of members of our community.”
The deputy followed up with his own lengthy apology. Both Rodgers and an interoffice file obtained by WHIO cited an issue with medication in seeking to explain the anti-Democratic Party posts.
The deputy’s apology reads, in part:
I posted messages to my personal Facebook account that I myself was appalled to see and read. I am prescribed medication that I sometimes have to use to help me sleep. Unfortunately, a noted side effect of that medication is to do things while I’m still asleep. Those things for me have included texting, making phone calls, walking around my house, eating food out of the refrigerator, and posting on social media …
I know I cannot apologize enough, and my apologies may seem empty, but I will continue to apologize as long as necessary. I know it will be difficult for the public to trust me, but I will do everything in my power to start mending that trust. I apologize from the bottom of my heart and want to ensure our community I will always serve to the best of my ability and strive to do better. I want to ensure the citizens in our community that I have always treated everyone with dignity and respect no matter our differences and will strive to show them I can do better.
“I do not remember writing these posts or deleting any posts,” Rodgers reportedly wrote in a message to his superiors referencing the sleeping medication. “It does cause some of my communication to be ‘out of character’ which is a documented side effect.”
Clark County is home to the City of Springfield, the county seat. Springfield itself stands as the focal point of one of the more bizarre stories to emanate out of the 2024 election season.
Over the summer, former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance repeated unverified claims that legal Haitian immigrants were “eating the cats” and dogs and other pets that belonged to, presumably non-Haitian, Springfield residents.
More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Lacked judicial authority’: Trump and JD Vance got ‘special treatment’ when judges dismissed complaint over ‘eating the cats’ rhetoric, lawsuit says
In comments to the Springfield News-Sun, Young said the Rodgers issue was a knock-on effect of the baseless cat-eating allegations.
“We’ve been in this battle over the last few months, with the attacks on the Haitian community and other immigrants, and we protect people’s rights and we don’t support the conduct to the contrary,” the chief deputy said. “I can’t go back in time and take that post away; the lieutenant made the post and he has received consequences for that.”
Rodgers received a written reprimand for the Facebook posts, Young told the paper.
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