W.Va. Capitol Officer Appeals Firing Over Facebook Post

A Capitol police officer is appealing his firing over a post he made on Facebook.

The Public Employees Grievance Board has scheduled a grievance hearing for Douglas Day on June 10.

The Charleston Gazette reports that Day was fired on Feb. 6. Three days earlier, he wrote a Facebook post about a protest at the Capitol over the state’s response to a Jan. 9 chemical spill.

Day’s post said that if there any time he despised wearing a police uniform, it was during the protest.

Day tells the newspaper that no disciplinary action was taken against him during the two-and-a-half years that he worked as a Capitol officer.

Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety spokesman Lawrence Messina says the grievance process should be allowed to take its course.