Earlier this year, West Manchester Township Police Sgt. Patrick Hinds, a more than 34-year veteran of the force, shared a handful of Islam-critical memes⁠ — including the ones below:

“The department is going to address the issue and handle the matter which is a personnel issue,” West Manchester Police Chief John Snyder said in an interview last month. “As the Chief of Police, I take this situation very seriously and I will take appropriate action to address this and any other behavior that discredits the professional reputation of this police department.”

And while details of the internal investigation have not been released, the department rolled out its first ever social media policy nearly 10 days after the article’s initial publication.

The York Daily Record obtained a copy of the police department’s new policy. Part of it states: “Social media usage by employees in their private lives is understandable and expected in many circumstances. The Department recognizes that employees have private lives and they may certainly utilize social media privately; however there must be work-related restrictions that accompany the law enforcement profession.”

Some of those restrictions include:

“Employees are prohibited from posting content that is not consistent with the duties, oath of office, and/or code of ethics of a West Manchester Township Police officer. This includes but is not limited to any material that is racially biased, sexist, insulting to groups on the basis of national origin, or discriminatory based on religion. Posting such content is subject to discipline consistent with departmental policy.”

“Departmental employees are public employees, and they shall be cautioned that any speech on or off duty that is made in regard to their professional duties that prove significantly harmful to the department or a legitimate government interest is not necessarily protected speech according to relevant and current case law.”

“Any speech by an employee that would affect the credibility of said employee could be subject to discovery in connection with a criminal case, thereby requiring that it be turned over to defense counsel should such information be sought through the formal discovery process.”

The York Daily Record analyzed the Facebook pages of more than 500 police officers from all 20 departments in York County in response to the Plain View Project, a national database that compiled posts and comments that researchers believed could negatively affect public perception and trust in law enforcement.