Police On Facebook: Officer Suspended For Obama Gorilla Harambe Post

A police officer in Florida has been suspended for a Facebook post that called former President Barack Obama a gorilla.

Officer Christina Arribas, who has been with the Bartow, Florida, police department since 2006, wrote the post in November. On Friday she was placed on administrative leave with pay, but more disciplinary actions could be forthcoming, Bay News 9 in St. Petersburg reported. Bartow is a city of 18,000 located approximately 50 miles east of Tampa.

Read: Police Officers Charged With Crimes: After Shooting Unarmed Teen, Florida Officer Charged With Manslaughter

"This year we lost two gorillas," said the post, which was made under an account attributed to "Chrissy GillRakers," a fake name. "One is in heaven and one is moving out of the White House. One will be missed. One will not be."

The gorilla "in heaven" seems to be a reference to Harambe, the 17-year-old gorilla made famous after he was killed by workers at the Cincinnati Zoo last year. The zoo employees shot Harambe after the gorilla grabbed and dragged a three-year-old boy who fell into his enclosure.

Protesters demonstrated outside of the Barton police department's headquarters on Thursday and demanded the department fire Arribas from the force. One by one, the protesters delivered bananas to the department's front desk for Chief Joe Hall and Arribas, local reports said.

Also on Thursday, State Attorney Brian Haas sent Arribas a letter indicating she would never be used as a witness in criminal prosecutions.

"Today, I was made aware that you recently made public comments on social media that are most concerning and racially offensive," the letter said. "The evidence of your bias is so strong, that your credibility is damaged to the point that this office will no longer use you as a witness in any of our cases."

The post came to light because a local pastor made a public records request in an attempt to help disgraced former Bartow officer De'aonte Broom, who was fired in 2016 for being untruthful during a criminal investigation, 10 News Tampa Bay reported.

Arribas was also suspended for two days in December for violating the department's social media policy by posting a picture of herself in her police uniform on her private Facebook account.

This was not the first time a police officer has faced disciplinary action for sharing racist social media posts. In November, an Alabama police officer was fired for sharing a meme that said Michelle Obama was "fluent in Ghetto." That same month, a police officer in Michigan was suspended for writing "go home monkeys" on a Facebook live feed of a Donald Trump protest.