A Dallas police officer who called Charlie Kirk’s assassination “an absolute win” and wrote “the sun will rise on a grateful universe” after former Vice President Dick Cheney died was suspended for one day without pay, according to newly released records reviewed by The Dallas Morning News.

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Officer Qualin Dickson took issue with a Facebook post comparing Kirk to civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., writing that the conservative activist would have supported the Ku Klux Klan and that “Not only did he eat crow, he ate a high caliber bullet. Good riddance.”

The discipline, issued in January, came amid a broader national backlash over social media posts about Kirk’s death, with teachers, municipal workers and others facing investigations, suspensions or firings. The debate has raised questions about the limits of First Amendment protections for public employees.

A deputy chief placed Dickson on paid administrative leave two days after his posts were flagged by a fellow officer. The monthslong departmental inquiry that followed found the eight-year officer had violated the department’s social media policy.

On Nov. 4, while he was still on leave for the comments about Kirk, Dickson took to Facebook to celebrate the death of Cheney, another prominent Republican.

Don’t let Google decide who you trust.

“This needed to happen,” wrote Dickson, who also serves in the U.S. Army Reserve. “Now the sun will rise on a grateful universe…”

Dickson did not appeal the suspension but issued a rebuttal, the records show. He wrote he was exercising his First Amendment right by expressing his views and never connected his Facebook page with his position as a police officer.  

“My intent was not to offend or cause any friction with my peers,” he wrote in the rebuttal memo provided in response to a records request. “In the future, I will be more thoughtful and careful with any public social media posts.”

In his rebuttal memo, Dickson said his opinion was shaped by Cheney’s role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. He added that he was not condoning violence.

Dickson did not respond to messages seeking comment. The officer who flagged the posts about Kirk to internal affairs, Senior Cpl. Matthew Dechiara, also did not respond.

Allison Hudson, a police spokesperson, said the matter was handled in line with department policy. “Dallas police employees are expected to uphold professional standards that maintain public trust,” she wrote in a statement Friday. “Because this is a personnel matter, we will not comment further.”

Public-safety employees who commented on Kirk’s death elsewhere in Texas faced stiffer punishment. A Hardin County sheriff’s dispatcher and a Canyon Lake Fire and Emergency Medical Services employee were fired after posting on social media about Kirk’s death, according to media reports.

Fellow officer worried about safety

Dechiara and Dickson were both assigned to the department’s North Central Division and worked together. The two were Facebook friends.

In a memo, Dechiara said he came across Dickson’s posts while scrolling on the platform the day of the shooting and described them as “unprofessional/alarming.” He wrote that the posts made him feel “uneasy,” given that he works with Dickson and that Dickson interacts with the public.

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“I felt if Officer Dickson saw or heard my political views or opinion of the incident, my safety would potentially be at risk either from a suspect on the job while he’s on scene or himself retaliating,” Dechiara wrote, adding later that, “we should not be celebrating deaths of anyone.”

Dechiara screenshotted the posts and passed them along to an officer working in internal affairs. He said he unfriended Dickson on Facebook because he did not want to see “more extreme posts,” the records show.

In his own memo, Dickson said he deleted the posts after speaking with a Dallas Police Association attorney. He reiterated his belief that Kirk expressed offensive views he believed were racist.

“My personal opinions on matters of public concern have never caused me to lose my objectivity or negatively affected my performance as a police officer,” Dickson wrote.

Dallas police history with social media

An assistant chief gave Dickson the one-day suspension during a hearing in early January, saying the punishment was consistent with discipline given to other officers who had run afoul of the department’s social media policy.

The policy allows employees to express themselves as private citizens on social media, but says their speech cannot impair working relationships, interfere with duties, undermine discipline and harmony among coworkers or disrupt department operations.

Dallas police officers have faced scrutiny over their social media posts on their personal pages before.

In 2019, The Plain View Project, a research group that collected and published public Facebook posts by current and former police officers, identified thousands of posts by officers — including in Dallas — they said included racist, sexist, anti-Muslim or violent rhetoric.

The group published a database of the posts, leading departments nationwide to investigate. In Dallas, more than a dozen officers were ultimately disciplined. The department updated its social media policy in 2020.

Dickson is also not the first Dallas officer to be disciplined over commentary on political violence.

Sgt. Arturo Martinez received a 30-day suspension without pay in 2024 after writing “aim better” online following the assassination attempt against  Donald Trump, then a former president and Republican presidential nominee, at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.

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