Today, in a greater effort to protect and serve, the Lockport Police Department posted a question to its Facebook page. Perhaps unaware of the social media storm that ensued after the New York Police Department asked Twitter users to post photos using the #MyNYPD hashtag in April, Lockport PD wondered:

According to the 2010 Census, nearly 22,000 people inhabit the small Upstate New York town and 87 percent of those residents are white. You can imagine, then, what happened next.

On a scale of Dumb to I Am A Complete Idiot Who Has No Understanding of History, how confused would you say you are, Jesi?

Is that so, Gary? Please, tell us more.

Because calling someone fat is the same as calling someone a nigger, right?

Lol? More like :-(

But wait, there's a good explanation for all of this. Mark Sanders, lifelong black man and community policing aide, wrote the post. So, ya know, no need to get angry about it.

This is about awareness. A-W-A-R-E-N-E-S-S .... Or is it?

No word yet from Mark.

Like the true American Hero she was meant to become, Chenia Hardy embraces her destiny and swoops in to tell it like it is.

So it's confirmed: Lockport is a raggedy city. Glad that's settled.

UPDATE: Lockport PD have since deleted the Facebook post. According to WGRZ, however, it seems the post came about after the police department identified Shamir Allen, a 19-year-old shooting suspect, as a "dark negro" in its database. "Apparently, this shows that there's certain aspects of Western New York, where it appears that racism is alive and well, especially within a police department," said Frank Mesiah, who is president of the NAACP Buffalo Branch.

[Image via Lockport PD Facebook]