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Four policemen from Jasper, Alabama, were sentenced to a two-week suspension and a week's pay loss after being charged with making a white energy symbol with their hands on a photo after an arrest.
originally published on Thursday by The Daily Mountain Eagle following the arrest of a man with several previous arrests and whom the police regard as a drug dealer important in the Jasper area. Mayor David O 'Mary said the officers had "committed" an "undertaking" to protect the community during an interview with The Daily Mountain Eagle
However, the mayor it's complained later that a hand gesture on the photo, which consists of thumb and index making a circle while the other three fingers remain straight, was racist and a symbol meaning "white power".
![[RTX4GY96] 19659005] People flash the sign "OK" at the "A Night for Freedom" event hosted by Mike Cernovich, in Manhattan, New York, United States, on January 20, 2018. The "OK" sign is sometimes considered a White power symbol because of a post was created on the site, 4chan. </span> <span class=](https://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embed-lg/public/2018/07/17/rtx4gy96.jpg)
Andrew Kelly / Reuters
Some Jasper residents disagreed with the meaning of the symbol and told WBMA-LD that it was part of the "Circle Game" that children play with the goal being to deceive another person by looking at the gesture of the hand placed under the waist. If the person is looking, the person doing the hand gesture gets to hit them in the shoulder, according to Dictionary.com.
After speaking with two senior officers who are African-American and considered the punishment "fair", O. Mary He told WBMA-LD that he had suspended the agents for two weeks and had suspended their salary for a week. Newsweek contacted O. Mary but did not receive an answer in time for publication. While the mayor admitted to WBMA-LD that he did not speak to agents to discover the intentional meaning behind the gesture, he added that meaning does not matter. .
"This is contradictory to the way we manage our city." O Mary explained, "It's not how we do things and they use poor judgment."
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O & # 39; Mary explained in an email to AL.com that the Public Service Council has agreed that the mayor has power to impose a five-day salary loss, he adds that diversity training will also be necessary.
The link between the symbol and white supremacy, which is very similar to the gesture of the hand "OK", comes from the 4chan website when an anonymous user says that the three fingers make a "w" and circle creates a "p", thus creating the first letters of the words "White Power", according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). While the ADL has acknowledged that 4chan has become "something of a haven" for racists and white supremacists, he called the symbol "OK" being declared a gesture of white power a "hoax."
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