WOODLAND PARK, Colo. — Most people know the feeling of getting blocked or deleting a comment on social media, but Attorney Andy McNulty with the law firm Killmer, Lane & Newman said there's a difference when the government is the one doing the blocking and deleting.
"Facebook is now kind of a digital town hall, you know, you don’t walk down to the village square anymore and air your grievances, you go to Facebook to do so," McNulty said. "The first amendment protects those spaces in a way it doesn't protect mine or your Facebook page."
Recently, a judge agreed.
"I called him a punk a** b****, and I said the city of Woodland Park targets special needs children for overtime pay and that's why you are pigs," Delbert Sgaggio, a Colorado Springs resident, recounted one of the comments he made on the Woodland Park Police Facebook page in 2020.
Sgaggio was criticizing one of the police's marijuana raids.
"In turn the chief of police came back and removed my comment," he said. "We ended up getting into a back and forth on you know what the law was. And I told him that he was violating my rights and if he removed my comment one more time I would sue him, and he removed my comment and I ended up suing him, and that's pretty much the gist of it."
Two years later, and a judge ruled the city of Woodland Park has to pay Sgaggio $65,000 and change their social media policy.
"Even if the police chief doesn't like being called a punk a** b**** he can't block you," McNulty said.
The settlement says Woodland Park can't remove posts because they deem them vulgar and profane, nor can they remove posts they deem inappropriate.
"A lot of people don't know this, but f*** is protected by the constitution," McNulty said. "So you know, vulgarity profanity, these things are protected by the constitution and the first amendment protects them just as much as any word that you would say, so Woodland Park learned that lesson the hard way."
McNulty said the very first comment Sgaggio made about this police raid did not have any curse words in it. It was just critical of police, and that's what he hopes people take away from this settlement.
"A case like this is really important because it makes sure that the government can’t just delete people’s comments so it looks like everyone is supportive of the government for example," said McNulty. "That doesn’t happen in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, or in China and places like that."
9News reached out to the city of Woodland Park and Woodland Park Police for comment, but as of publishing this story, has not heard back.