"We Need Kash Patel NOW!:"

Hold up.

An FBI Agent with a nose ring who can barely speak coherent English sentences told the media that a terrorist driving a truck with an ISIS flag killing 10 Americans is NOT a terrorist attack!?!

Seriously. listen to this

We need Kash Patel NOW!pic.twitter.com/v2sjeJ2bcH

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 1, 2025

The tweets in response to this one on the thread definitely weren't unaninmously in agreement. Some didn't see anything wrong with a nose ring, while others thought an obvious grammatical error was OK, since she was clearly nervous or something. I've never been a public spokesman, but I'm broadly familiar with policies over statements to the press, and from what I see here, several things aren't quite right.

First, any public statenment made to the press concerning an incident like this is normally drafted with some care and produced in writing to be approved up the chain of command. It can't be otherwise. As far as I can tell, this wasn't done in this case -- if nothinng else, the grammatical error should have been corrected up the chain. The woman who read the release might have been winging it, got nervous, and flubbed the line she was trying to read, but that's another problem.

Law enforcement agencies have a position called "public information officer" or PIO. This may be part-time, as-needed, but news organizations have that person in their Rolodex, and cops or agents on the street know to refer any inquiries from the press to the PIO. For a street officer or agent to try to wing it with a reporter would be a disciplinary issue. The PIO in turn is selected for his or her judgment, tact, and poise when information like this has to be released.

So first, the FBI's initial announcement had a grammatical error. It isn't so much a reflection on the individual agent, Alethea Duncan, as it is on her chain of command, which either didn't catch the error in the draft phase, or it put Duncan up without being confident in her poise under pressure. My sense is that the head of the FBI New Orleans field office should have made the announcement in any case, not a low-level agent.

The next problem is that the announcment said, flat out, “This is not a terrorist event", which was almnost imnmediately contradicted by the fact that the perp had an ISIS flag on his rented truck. This was definitely somethng that higher-ups who should have approved the statement would normally have caught. If they didn't know, they should have said they didn't know. Standard "can't confirm" wording is normally part of every senior bureaucrat's vocabulary.

Finally, the nose ring. I went searching the web for any guidance on whether the FBI has a policy on body piercings. The closest I came was a reddit thread, What are your guys’ department’s/agency’s rules on piercings/tattoos?

Wondering if I can hear specific examples beyond just it having to be professional. Especially hoping to hear from anybody at FBI/DEA/HSI/USMS. I’m assuming certain things aren’t allowed most places, like septum piercings, but wanted to know if anyone had any concrete examples of what was/wasn’t allowed.

As far as I can tell, nobody indentified thenselves as FBI in replying, likely out of prudence. A few identified themselves as Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with answers like this:

If HSI has a tattoo policy then I've never seen it. I feel like most HSI agents have at least one tattoo, I definitely know some with hand and head/neck stuff going on but no face tattoos. Obviously tattoos showing affiliation with any hate group or gang would be a problem.

I think there are restrictions against certain piercings while in training but that's for safety reasons. Don't want someone's finger going through you gauge while rolling on the mat!

A "gauge" is a large, open piercing of the earlobe. It looks like the FBI doesn't much care if you have a nose ring or not, or maybe they'd even rather you have one. I discovered, though, that policy in local police departments is typically against any sort of facial piercing, for instance:

It is the policy of the Conway Police Department to present a professional image and appearance to the public. In order to maintain this professional image and appearance, restrictions will be placed on tattoos and body piercings.

. . . Members shall not wear any item of ornamentation in their nose, eyebrow, tongue or any other location of their body that is visible while functioning in a law enforcement capacity. Female members are authorized to wear earrings however, they will be limited to two (2) per ear.

This strikes me as entirely reasonable, even to the extent that a male officer is apparently not allowed to wear earrings. This particular department allows wedding rings, but others don't for safety reasons. I would think there would also be safety-based arguments against facial piercings, since officers do sometimes get into situations where perps will bite, scratch, gouge eyes, grab noses, ears, and so forth while being placed in custody, and facial piercings could exacerbate any potential injury.

Another post on the reddit thread above says,

I know an ATF agent with gauges that actually wears them and some HSI guys who have the piercings but never wear them so they closed up. I can't remember anyone with a septum piercing. I know an HSI agent with a tongue piercing.

I've never heard any positive comments about any of these piercings.

The best I can conclude is that well-run state and local law enforcement agencies have policies designed to project an image of professionalism, as well as concern for officer safety. For whatever reason, federal agencies don't seem to have equivalent policies, and it's now affecting their image of professionalism. The problem in the New Orleans case goes beyond the individual agent, Alethea Duncan. Her chain of command was responsible for the poorly worded statement with a clumsy grammatical error, and they should have had a designated PIO with more poise to give the properly worded and spproved text.

It does look like the FBI needs a purge, but it has to be at the upper levels.