{"id":203275,"date":"2026-03-04T03:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/203275\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T03:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:49:10","slug":"oc-chaplain-removed-after-anti-muslim-reposts-on-social-media-city-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/203275\/","title":{"rendered":"OC Chaplain Removed After Anti-Muslim Reposts On Social Media, City Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ORANGE COUNTY, CA \u2014 Buena Park City officials let go of a volunteer chaplain who was with the city&#8217;s police department since 1998 after finding social media posts he reposted or liked that characterized Muslim people as violent. <\/p>\n<p>Pastor Don Harbert was released from his position on Jan. 28.<\/p>\n<p>The news comes after city officials reviewed his social media posts and found he made &#8220;broad characterizations portraying Muslims as violent&#8221; and shared &#8220;demonstrably false and misleading claims,&#8221; according to a statement posted by Buena Park Mayor Connor Traut. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Such conduct is inconsistent with the neutrality, trust and respect required of individuals serving in city-affiliated public safety and ceremonial roles,&#8221; his statement said. <\/p>\n<p>Harbert posted about his removal on social media on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DVSO8TqkZ52\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Saturday, Feb. 28.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was honored to be selected by the Cypress College Americana Foundation as the Buena Park Citizen of the Year. I was scheduled to receive recognition from the Buena Park City Council on February 10, 2026; however, this event has been postponed,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;On Wednesday, January 28, at 9:30 a.m., I was called to meet with the City Manager, Assistant City Manager, and Interim Police Chief. During this meeting, I was informed that the City Council had decided to relieve me of my duties as a Chaplain for the Buena Park Police Department due to a post made on my Facebook page, which they deemed to be hate speech.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, CA \u2014 Buena Park City officials let go of a volunteer chaplain who was with the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-203275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}