LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Lafayette police fired a recently hired officer less than 24 hours after he was accused to having ties to racist posts made on a fascist web forum, LPD Chief Pat Flannelly confirmed Saturday afternoon.
Flannelly said Officer Joseph Zacharek, hired by LPD in June, was called into the police station Friday night after claims started showing up on social media that he was linked to Iron March, a neo-Nazi forum disbanded in 2017 but that had its entire database exposed on the internet in late 2019.
Flannelly said that after LPD internal affairs detectives found the social media tip “plausible and credible,†they confronted Zacharek about the claims and asking whether it was hoax. Flannelly said Zacharek admitted that the comments were his.
Flannelly said Zacharek was fired, as of noon Saturday.
The chief also said the fact that Zacharek’s posts never showed up on LPD’s background checks would force the agency to review its processes.
“I know the question everyone will have is, how does something like this get missed in a background investigation,†Flannelly said. “How is it possible and how do we prevent this from ever happening again? I’m not going to sugar-coat this. Ultimately, it’s my responsibility. We missed it.â€
Attempts to reach Zacharek were not immediately successful Saturday.
Friday night, Lafayette police acknowledged on social media that they were aware of accusations that Zacharek was among Iron Watch members revealed by the data dump and that he’d made racist posts dating to 2016, including questioning “the vile ‘culture’ of the African and learned that everything I had been taught on race had been a flimsy fabrication which was not supported by real world evidence.â€
The bio at Iron Watch, shown by the site ironwatch.exposed and attributed to him, also claims an interest “in (National Socialist) economics as a way of throwing off the chains of usury and Jewish owned banking.â€
“We saw the information come over our Twitter feed last night and launched an immediate investigation,†Flannelly said Saturday.
The night before, as social media posts tagged LPD, the Lafayette police official Twitter feed posted: “We appreciate this information being brought to our attention. An investigation into these allegations will commence immediately. There is no room for hate at LPD. We will get to the truth.â€
Zacharek was one of three new LPD officers announced by the department in June. An LPD release from that time said Zacharek was originally from Edwards, New York, who attended Penn State University and served three years as a tank crewman in the U.S. Army. “He visited Lafayette and fell in love with the community,†LPD wrote at the time.
In data posted by the site IronWatch.Exposed, a user going by Panzerleiter on Iron Watch was created by someone with a Google mail account under Zacharek’s name. The bio for the user named Panzerleiter at Iron Watch also claimed to be a tank crewman in the U.S. Army who registered in upstate New York. Panzer is a German tank. Leiter, in German, means leader or chief or conductor.
Lt. Matt Gard, public information officer with LPD, said Saturday that Zacharek was still going through training and had not been assigned, yet, to patrol Lafayette streets. Flannelly said Saturday that Zacharek had not had contact in uniform with the Lafayette public.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white nationalist and other hate groups, called Iron March “an influential gathering place for young neo-Nazis and neo-fascists who eyed the Western world with intentions of triggering race war on a global scale†According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Iron Watch had 1,653 users who “came to Iron March to debate what they believed to be universal truths about fascism, according to a 2016 podcast that featured one of the site’s founders and another contributing member.â€
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Attempts to reach the person behind the social media account @Ghosts_of_Past were not immediately successful, either. That account claimed the connection between IronMarch. Exposed posts and Zacharek that LPD was investigating.
The man behind another site, @antifashgordon, that initially tagged LPD declined to comment for the record.
Flannelly said he didn’t necessarily agree with how LPD found out about Zacharek’s ties to the white supremacist ground, but he said he appreciated that they’d let his agency know.
The chief said LPD’s background checks include discussions with friends and family, past employers, social media history and psychological profiles that include questions Flannelly said were designed to root out ties to hate groups and other questionable affiliations.
“I’m not sure we’re into the dark web or whatever this was,†Flannelly said. “So, we’re appreciative of whoever did that research, however they came across it. We’re appreciative that they shared it with us. … We would have never hired him in the first place if we’d uncovered that in the background investigation. He would have been effectively eliminated.â€
Through a new hire’s first year, an officer is not a merit office and can be let go at will, Flannelly said. Â
Did Flannelly think the hire was a deliberate attempt by a neo-Nazi group to infiltrate the LPD ranks?
“I don’t think that’s the case,†Flannelly said. “But in the last six months, I’ve heard people saying those things and post things like that publicly, and I’ve always very confident that our process would catch that. And it didn’t. … We’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and deal directly with our screening process. This is unacceptable.â€
Follow Dave Bangert on Twitter: @davebangert.
