Fake Carmel PD Facebook page targets ‘suspicious Arab looking people’

The Carmel By the Sea Police Officers Association is warning about a fake Facebook page posing as the police department’s patrol division.

One of the posts on the fake page asks in part for residents to look out for “suspicious Arab or Muslim looking people” and calls on residents to “make America Great Again together.”

The real Carmel by the Sea Police Department has been aware of this fake page since 2017, but it stayed pretty much inactive until a few days ago.

“So this we again contacted Facebook, asked them to remove the page and take it down. They did not get back to us yet, but we see that the page has been taken down within the last 24 hours,” said Cmdr. Luke Powell, of the Carmel Police Department.

It is important to note that Carmel police does not have an official Facebook page, but their officers association does.

Police say if they catch the person who made the page, he or she could be prosecuted for impersonating a police officer.

“Keep that in mind that police departments, we’re not going to solicit to you over the phone or on the Internet or through social media to pay fines or pay tickets that way,” said Cmdr. Powell.