Police in Santa Rosa responded Thursday to a controversy that began with a viral TikTok video.
Authorities denied the accusation by a TikTok user that one of its officers masked-shamed members of the public over a squad car megaphone.
The saga began Monday with a video on the popular social media platform where a young user alleged a Santa Rosa officer called members of the public slaves for wearing masks. It didn’t show the incident, but recorded her immediate reaction to it.
The video has been deleted from her account after it racked up about 60,000 views and garnered national headlines.
However, police said if the incident happened, it wasn’t by an officer.
Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Christopher Mahurin said the department quickly launched an investigation and pieced together the chain of events.
"We’re able to meet with business owners and employees that were working on Monday," Mahurin said. "All of them have stated that none of them heard any disparaging comments, especially from police officers. Several businesses were able to provide us with surveillance footage."
The investigation found that one officer was buying lunch in a nearby business, but was dispatched to a call minutes before the claim.
Mahurin said police don’t believe the woman lied about what she saw, but can say with certainty it wasn’t a police officer.
"Social media has a lot of great features to it that can really help people amplify their voice and really get important messages out there, but the opposite is also true where some of those messages, which may not be 100%, true are able to spread like wildfire," he said.
Mahurin added that the TikTok user was cooperative as police carried out the investigation.
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