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Florida deputy demoted after being pictured wearing QAnon patch with Pence

by Justin Wise - 12/03/18 4:24 PM ET

The Florida SWAT team member who appeared in photos with Vice President Pence while wearing a patch promoting the “QAnon” conspiracy theory has been disciplined.

The Miami New Times reported on Monday that Matt Patten, a member of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s SWAT team, was reprimanded and demoted from the SWAT team and the county’s Office of Homeland Security.

In its written reprimand, Broward County reportedly said that the QAnon conspiracy was “controversial” and that the picture of Patten with Pence had made the office appear “biased” politically.

{mosads}”This resulted in negative ramifications on a national platform as a controversy for the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the County, the SWAT team, and Sergeant Patten,” a copy of the reprimand said. “The controversy also caused the V.P.O.T.U.S. Office Website to delete the image.”

The vice president had tweeted a photo of his interaction with Florida law enforcement, which included Patten smiling and wearing a patch with “Question the Narrative” and the letter Q on it.

The wide-ranging and vague QAnon touches on a number of far-reaching, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Reddit banned the QAnon page in September, saying among other things that the content on the page “incites violence.”

Pence deleted the tweet and posted another one hours later that did not include Patten.

An ABC affiliate in Florida reported on Saturday that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was conducting an internal investigation into the matter.

Broward County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright had told the news outlet that Patten was not authorized to wear the patch.

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