UC-Davis Doesn’t Punish Student Group for Posting Remarks Critical of Fallen Police Officer Natalie Corona

Fallen police officers usually are revered and honored after their deaths, leaving behind family members, friends, relatives, and colleagues to mourn their passing while on the job. The Officer Down Memorial Page reports that last year, in 2018, 148 police officers died in the line of duty, which illustrates how dangerous the job can be.

Natalie Corona, a twenty-year-old police officer in Davis, California, was shot and killed responding to an accident scene on January 10.

After her death, images of her posing with a ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flag, which is an American flag in black, white, and one blue stripe, circulated on social media and in news reports. Apparently, it inflamed and upset the University of California-Davis’s Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission, which commission is composed of college students. Although the commission extended its condolences to those who knew Corona, it did not take the photograph well.

On social media, the commission criticized the pro-police American flag that Corona held in the photograph, saying, “The flag is blatantly anti-Black and disrespectful.” The post continued, “We would also like to provide resources for students triggered by this event and the circulating images of a flag that has been popularized by the ‘Blue Lives Matter’ crowd.” The group said, “We see it necessary to call-out all community members who continue to post and disseminate images of the Blue Lives Matter flag online.”

But, UC-Davis has not commented more on the punishments and repercussions for the commission’s rhetoric, other than a tepid apology about the decision to delete the social media post at the center of the controversy.

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