Widow of murdered Lakewood officer fights graphic anti-cop Facebook page
Oct 9, 2014, 1:38 PM | Updated: 5:38 pm
Sgt. Mark Renninger, and Officers Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens, and Greg Richards are remembered at a memorial service at the Tacoma Dome Dec. 8, 2009. (AP file)
(AP file)
Almost five years after the death of her husband in the ambush of four Lakewood police officers, a Facebook page is ripping open the wounds for the widow of one of the victims.
Kim Renninger tells the Dori Monson Show she learned Wednesday of the page glorifying the killing of cops.
The widow of Sgt. Mark Renninger was stunned by the pictures, which included graphic images of dead officers.
“They’re horrible. And I noticed that three of the pictures were of my husband,” she says.
The pictures were taken at her husband’s memorial after his killing in 2009 that took his life, along with fellow officers Greg Richards, Ronald Owens, and Tina Griswold.
They show Mark Renninger’s coffin with his two best friends standing in honor guard position in front of the casket.
“Those images are powerful in [sic] of themselves and they took it a step further and put their own evil twist on them,” she says angrily.
That twist includes what she calls horribly offensive language and targets on the backs of Renninger’s friends.
“It’s this kind of hatred talk and this kind of mentality that fueled the person that murdered my husband and that’s my biggest concern,” she says.
Renninger says she’s been subjected to hateful comments ever since her husband’s death, but this goes way too far. Even worse, she’s furious Facebook has refused to take the page down, saying it doesn’t violate its “Community Standards.”
“When it’s a personal attack on me and my family, that’s when I need to take a step more than the average person,” she says. “I’ve seen it, I get it, it hurts, but I don’t let it get me down. I don’t let it affect me, but this is just a completely different situation.”
Renninger says she’s rallied friends and family to lobby Facebook to take the site down, and she’s leveraged some connections to make a personal appeal to the company.
“I hope Facebook takes a look at this and maybe changes their policy and really looks into these types of pages and makes it easier to take these down.”
Renninger says the timing of her discovery is particularly painful, since it comes just a month before the Nov. 29 anniversary of the death of her husband.
Renninger has partnered with KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show to urge others to report the page to Facebook and encourage its removal.
You can do that by going to the page here, and click on the “…” in the upper right hand corner and report it to Facebook.
