Ariana Maia Sawyer

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

Metro Police have fired an officer for a Facebook comment he made in July referencing a fatal officer-involved shooting in Falcon Heights, Minn.

Anthony Venable, a nine-year Metro Police veteran and Hermitage Precinct midnight shift officer, was fired Wednesday by Deputy Chief Todd Henry after a six-month investigation, according to police.

The comment was made in the wake of 32-year-old Philando Castile's death after a police officer shot him in the presence of his girlfriend and her child during a traffic stop. Castile told the officer he had a gun with a legal permit but said he would not reach for the weapon. He was shot four times while reaching for his driver's license.

"Yeah. I would have done 5," Venable wrote, according to police. The comment was just one of several the officer made in a Facebook thread that were so inflammatory, officers initially believed someone else had pirated Venable's account, according to police.

In a letter dated Feb. 2 notifying Venable of the upcoming disciplinary hearing, Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson wrote to the officer, telling him that the incident has discredited Venable and created an uncomfortable atmosphere for every Metro Nashville Police Department employee, especially those on the front lines.

The hearing comes less than a week after Nashville police officer Joshua Lippert shot and killed Jocques Clemmons in a James A. Cayce Homes parking lot Friday afternoon.

Nashvillians march, list demands after man killed in officer-involved shooting

According to the chief's summary of the investigation, Venable consistently complained that his First Amendment rights were being violated.

“Certainly, to be clear, you have the First Amendment right to state to anyone that you would have shot Mr. Castile five times instead of the four times he was actually shot,” Anderson wrote. “However, making such a statement is inconsistent with your employment with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, and making such comments has disqualified you from serving in a police officer capacity.”

Venable was decommissioned in July pending the results of an internal investigation after the post was brought to the department's attention. He was assigned to desk duty at the time and according to police, never returned to street duty. His gun and badge were taken from him.

Do police officers enjoy same level of free speech as civilians?

The summary details some of Venable's other comments in the same thread, such as "It's real and it's what every cop is trained to do. Move to Mexico," and "I am trained by the best."

The chief agreed that the former officer was trained by the best, but said that if he'd been trained to shoot and kill, it wasn't in Nashville.

According to Anderson, the comments combined with Venable's Facebook profile information and other information readily available on the internet identified Venable as an MNPD officer, potentially jeopardizing the public's respect and confidence in the police department and posing a risk to department operations, public safety and police morale.

Venable argued the post was meant to be sarcastic and had been taken out of context.

But Anderson called the respective notions "unrealistic" and "incomprehensible."

Venable’s comments first became public along with a spate of shootings and other social media fouls.

Two Memphis officers were suspended for thirty days, and one ultimately resigned, after a Snapchat post depicting a white person’s hand pointing a gun at an emoji of a black child.

The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights division had just taken over the investigation of the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, by two Baton Rouge, La., police officers.

And five police officers were killed in a targeted shooting at a peaceful Dallas protest.

"Our training emphasizes the sanctity of human life," Anderson said at the time, asking citizens not to judge Nashville police by these incidents. "I have confidence in the men and women working to protect the people of this city, their moral ethic, the skills they possess, and their ability to make appropriate decisions in difficult situations."

In the chief's letter, he said Venable's comments, after being reported on by local news organizations, in part contributed to unrest across the city that led to demonstrations.

The day following Venable's decommission, clergy gathered in front of police headquarters, calling for unity and peace, and Black Lives Matter Nashville held a vigil and demonstration downtown where more than a thousand people gathered.

BLM decried police militarization in Nashville and said the city is not immune from problems like those in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights. Multiple organizations called on Metro to dismantle its Operation Safer Streets program, which they said specifically targets black and Latino neighborhoods, incarcerating disproportionate numbers of people in minority groups.

Police describe the practice as a way to combat gang activity in Nashville and say they go where they receive more calls for service.

After Friday’s fatal officer-involved shooting in East Nashville, those same demands by local activists were repeated at another protest outside Metro City Hall.

Letter from Chief Anderson to Anthony Venable

Reach Ariana Sawyer at asawyer@tennessean.com or on Twitter @a_maia_sawyer.