KENT, Wash. — The Kent Police Department posted an explanation on Facebook Wednesday afternoon, explaining how they “accidentally” reposted a controversial image on their X account earlier this week.

The image that was republished by the KPD shows two people in military uniform detaining a person with a caption suggesting that the soldiers are members of the IDF and the people being detained are members of Hamas.

Below is the social media post that KPD posted on X.

The KPD released a statement via Facebook late Wednesday explaining what happened:

On Monday, November 25, a photo was accidentally reposted on the Kent Police Department’s X account. The photograph shows two individuals in military uniform detaining a person with a caption suggesting that the soldiers are members of the IDF and the detained individual is a member of Hamas. The photo was accidentally reposted and was the result of human error – a wrong click on the keyboard. As soon as the error was recognized on Tuesday morning, the photo was removed.

KIRO News first asked about the report Tuesday afternoon. The Police Department informed KIRO of the accidental nature of the post and that it was removed as soon as the error was discovered. The department learned today that a post can remain in a person’s X feed until the feed is refreshed. The X Help Center states that “cancelling a repost will remove it from other timelines. However, it may still appear on mobile devices that display cached history.” Because of this, the Police Department has temporarily disabled his X account.

The Kent Police Department X account is used to inform followers of major incidents and successes of the department and to alert individuals to safety issues. A review of previous posts shows that the post described above had nothing to do with the work of the Kent Police Department and was made in error.

The department is currently working to refine its process should an accidental posting occur in the future.

KPD deactivated his X account for a short time after the repost, but it is currently retroactive.