The Colorado State Patrol has agreed to pay $50,000 to a man who had been banned from the agency’s Facebook page for leaving critical comments.
Jerod Zaczkowski threatened to sue, alleging that the agency had violated his First Amendment rights by deleting several of his comments, including one in which he called the the patrol’s members “tyrant Nazi(s),” and for blocking his ability to post additional comments in early 2025. To stop the potential litigation, the patrol will pay him a settlement and its public affairs staff will undergo annual training on Department of Public Safety’s social media policy, according to a settlement agreement provided by Zaczkowski’s attorney.
“What happened to Jerod Zaczkowski is intolerable in a democratic society,” the attorney, Andy McNulty, said in a statement. “The State Patrol censored a critic online because it didn’t like what he was saying.”
Zaczkowski had been unbanned, and the agency had earlier conceded that his First Amendment rights had been violated, McNulty wrote, but Zaczkowski’s comments were not restored.
In a separate statement Friday morning, patrol spokeswoman Sherri Mendez said the agency had “made mistakes in the handling of our social media page and have taken steps to ensure these mistakes don’t happen again.”
