The Grapevine Police Department in Texas is facing backlash after accepting a gift from the Christian conservative Patriot Mobile cellphone company, The Dallas Morning News reports.
The company sponsored a pizza party of the department's staff, which thanked the company and said they were “blessed to have their support and encouragement.” But after an outcry on social media, Grapevine police said it would not accept the $1,500 gift certificate to Cane Rosso and would instead donate it to charity.
“We do not question a donor’s beliefs, we simply express our gratitude,” the department wrote in a Facebook post. “In this case, however, the donation brought out deep emotion.”
According to The Morning News, Patriot Mobile describes itself as “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider” and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote candidates in recent Tarrant County suburban school board races. "Last spring, the company’s political action committee sent thousands of political mailers accusing sitting school board members of endangering students with critical race theory and other 'woke' ideas regarding gender and race," The Morning News' report stated.
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But Patriot Mobile has come under fire for politicizing communities and school boards, which inspired the anger over the department accepting the gift.
“Why would you think it was appropriate to associate with a group like Patriot Mobile,” Grapevine resident Jane Boyd wrote on the Facebook post. “I am absolutely appalled. Not a good look for the Grapevine PD. So much for a fair and just police force.”
“Pretty gutless,” another person wrote. “How sad that a simple act of kindness becomes so misconstrued.”
Patriot Mobile CEO Glenn Story said in a prepared statement that the response "from the far left is not surprising to us, nor is it anything new."
“We have been called Christian Nationalists by those who want to silence us, to break us, to make us stop, but we embrace the term. We love our country and we love the Lord and we strive to be light in the darkness," Story said, adding that Grapevine police “took a knee" when they rejected the gift.
Read the full story at The Dallas Morning News.
