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Woman who accused officer of drinking on the job gets called out by police

DOUGLAS, Ga. — A Georgia police department has responded to a Facebook post that accused one of its officers of drinking alcohol while on duty.

According to the Douglas GA Police Department's Facebook page, a woman posted a picture on her Facebook page on Wednesday that claimed an officer was "on his 2nd alcoholic beverage" at a Ruby Tuesday.

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The Police Department says the officer was Sgt. Stacey Williams, and that he was there in uniform with his family members having lunch.

“Apparently Ms. Sadie Ahearn and a companion thought Sgt. Williams was drinking an alcoholic beverage, and before finding out the truth, she posted on Facebook a photograph of Sgt. Williams at the table with his drink and meal,” Chief Gary Casteloes wrote on behalf of the department.

Casteloes says the Police Department takes allegations of misconduct seriously and looked into the incident immediately.

The drink in question contained orange juice, pineapple juice, mango puree and cherry syrup— no alcohol, according to the police department.

According to the police department's Facebook post, Ahearn’s companion confronted Williams about the drink. Williams went back inside with him and spoke to the employee who served him to try to clear up the situation.

The employee said it was a fruit drink only, but Ahearn did not apologize, the police department says.

“Posts of this type are defaming and malicious attacks on the officer’s credibility in court and in the community and cause the officer to go through a lot of duress in clearing their name of the allegation,” Casteloes wrote.

The department says it has cleared Williams of the allegation and has contacted Facebook concerning the false post.

The department’s Facebook post says that what Ahearn wrote is not protected under the First Amendment and was “clearly done to attack the officer through social media.”

“In these days when we are trying hard to build trust between the community and law enforcement… we do not need these types of false, irresponsible and malicious posts done solely to discredit the person and the badge,” the post states.

The post was shared thousands of times.

On March 30, 2016 there was a posting on Facebook by an individual (Sadie Ahearn), who was at Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant...

Posted by Douglas GA Police Department on Thursday, March 31, 2016

The police department has since deleted the post after Williams says Ahearn contacted him to apologize.

Stacey Solo Williams3 hrs · ..Good morning to my family, friends and fellow officers. Late yesterday evening I...

Posted by Douglas GA Police Department on Friday, April 1, 2016