{"id":212892,"date":"2026-06-07T05:41:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/212892\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T05:41:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:41:40","slug":"pennsylvania-mayor-slams-ex-cop-for-joining-love-island-usa-cast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/212892\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Mayor Slams Ex-Cop for Joining \u201cLove Island USA\u201d Cast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sean-mayor-745x568.jpg\" width=\"745\" height=\"568\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photo of Sean Reifel, Mayor J. William Reynolds\"\/>Sean Reifel, Mayor J. William Reynolds. (Instagram)<\/p>\n<p>Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Mayor J. William Reynolds publicly criticized a former police officer for quitting the force to join a reality TV show.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc27.com\/pennsylvania\/pennsylvania-mayor-rails-against-cop-he-says-left-for-love-island-usa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WHTM<\/a>, Mayor Reynolds slammed \u201cLove Island USA\u201d cast member Sean Reifel for costing the city thousands of dollars in training expenses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur police department spent a lot of time training and we paid thousands of taxpayer dollars to send him to the police academy. We are disappointed he left as we now have another vacancy in our department that is impossible to fill until next year. I never thought I\u2019d see the day in America where reality show participation wins out over being a police officer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" width=\"745\" height=\"385\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photo of Sean Reifel\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sean-reifel-745x385.jpg\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sean-reifel-745x385.jpg\" width=\"745\" height=\"385\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photo of Sean Reifel\"\/>\u201cLove Island USA\u201d cast member Sean Reifel. (Peacock)<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/entertainment\/entertainment-celebrity\/sean-s-family-slams-bethlehem-s-mayor-and-police-department-for-love-island-usa-criticism\/ar-AA24QCzx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Morning Call<\/a>, Bethlehem\u2019s Police Chief Michelle Knott said she was \u201cdisappointed\u201d in Sean\u2019s decision to quit. She said department policy doesn\u2019t allow an officer to take a leave of absence to appear on a reality TV show. So he quit the police force.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt this time, I don\u2019t think there\u2019d be a department that would be willing to allow someone to leave for \u2018x\u2019 amount of weeks to go on a television show when everyone\u2019s hurting right now and overtime is being utilized to fill those gaps,\u201d Knott said. \u201cOfficers are getting burnt out. It\u2019s just a bad look to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sean\u2019s family members defended his decision to quit his job to be a contestant on season 8 of \u201cLove Island USA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a social media post, his sister wrote:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSean\u2019s sister here. This could have been a great opportunity for the mayor and police department to connect with the community, generate positive publicity for the town, and help improve perceptions of law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She continued, \u201cInstead, they chose a response that will likely reinforce the stereotypes they should be working to change. That said, I couldn\u2019t be more excited for my brother and this amazing opportunity. We\u2019ll be cheering him on every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sean is a 29-year-old single father of a 2-year-old boy.<\/p>\n<p>Reality TV veteran Derrick Levasseur said the police department missed an opportunity to build community connections through Sean\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Reifel, Mayor J. William Reynolds. (Instagram) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Mayor J. William Reynolds publicly criticized a former police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-212892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}