Rantz: Spokane officer who put ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sticker on car shouldn’t have been fired

An officer in the Spokane Police Department (SPD) who put a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker on his police car last year has been fired and several of his fellow officers were reprimanded during the review process, a new report states.

According to a story published this week in The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, a report issued in August from the city’s Office of the Police Ombuds indicates the officer, Bradley Moon, had the “Brandon” sticker on his SPD-issued vehicle for at least eight weeks in the summer of 2023. The phrase has become known as a hidden, less vulgar version of “F*** Joe Biden.”

Moon bragged to other people the mayor at the time, Nadine Woodward, complimented the sticker; and his fellow officers didn’t report the policy violation. (Woodward sought reelection in 2023 and lost to Lisa Brown, the current mayor.) Woodward didn’t respond when the Review sought a comment.

SPD spokesman Daniel Strassenberg confirmed to The Spokesman-Review Moon was, in fact, the officer who was fired. He received a Medal of Merit from the city in 2009 for his work as a commercial vehicle enforcement officer, the city’s website says. (A PDF confirming Moon’s award can be viewed here.) He was also the department’s employee of the year in 2005, the Spokane outlet noted.

Records obtained by the Review indicate he was fired May 8. The outlet also reached out to Moon and didn’t hear back.

The Spokesman-Review went on to report the department was first made aware of the situation in October 2023. Moon told internal investigators around that time he was “unaware of the political implications of the sticker and claimed he bought it in support of another officer’s son, Brandon, who suffered a ‘medical event’ in high school.” The Brandon in question recovered from the event and is a collegiate athlete, the report states.

When investigators questioned other officers about the sticker, they indicated they were aware of the political meaning behind it, even though Moon had told them that wasn’t how he interpreted it. Moon couldn’t explain why he didn’t put the sticker on his personal vehicle.

Should the officer have been fired? Jason Rantz says ‘no’

Jason Rantz, host of “The Jason Rantz Show” on AM 770 KTTH, addressed the story of the officer’s firing during his show Friday and acknowledged a key fact, the sticker was a policy violation.

“Let’s be clear from the start; let’s be honest from the start,” Rantz said. “He did, in fact, violate a policy he should not have this kind of sticker on his patrol vehicle. It’s obviously political. We would be upset if he had posted a sticker that said the same kind of insult against Donald Trump or any other Republican. So, he obviously violated a policy.”

Despite the policy violation being clear, Rantz believes the officer shouldn’t have been fired from his job. Instead, it was “fair” and “reasonable” for the officer to receive a reprimand instead of being terminated.

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The Review’s story explains that four of Moon’s supervisors were reprimanded for failing to address the issue when it was first brought up.

“The ombudsman also found Moon issued false or misleading statements and participated in prohibited speech, both city and department policy violations,” the Spokane outlet reported.

Jason went on to note the officer’s supervisors didn’t treat this as a significant offense and they were the ones who received reprimands, then it makes sense to think the officer didn’t think the sticker was something he’d lose his job over.

“Of course, he should not have been fired,” Rantz said. “Why would you fire him under these circumstances? He had every reason to believe that it wasn’t that big of a deal because his supervisors treated it as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. Indeed, they’re the ones who ended up getting reprimanded for not enforcing the policy violation or the policy leading to the violation, they could have at any point told him to take it down and had he not taken it off.”

From there, Jason looked at this from a different perspective, saying the officer wouldn’t have been fired if he had put an anti-Donald Trump sticker on his vehicle.

“And I simply ask this question: Does anyone out there think he would have been reprimanded? Or do you think he would have been fired if he put up a sticker that said ‘Black Lives Matter,’ or whatever the opposite of ‘Let’s go, Brandon’ is, … whatever sticker or saying you can think of, let’s just be very on the nose. ‘I hate Donald Trump,'” Jason asked. “If that was the sticker that was on his car, do you think, upon going through this investigation, having a panel set up of civilian oversight people looking at the complaint, would they have terminated?”

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The reason for that, Jason believes, is many of the civilian-led groups that provide oversight over city police departments biased against police officers.

“Ultimately, when we’re dealing with oversight groups, pretty much in any major city, we’re dealing with activists who don’t love cops,” Jason said. “Well, that’s not always going to be the case. It generally is the case, and we’ve certainly covered a whole bunch of stories here in Washington that indicate, very clearly, a bias that’s anti-cop coming from the people who provide the oversight or sit on police commissions that are civilian led.”

Head here or tap on the player below to listen to the whole segment from “The Jason Rantz Show.”

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, Instagram and Facebook.