US police force apologise for offensive ‘Call Of Duty’ inspired recruitment poster

4 March, 2024

"Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3". CREDIT: Activision Blizzard

An Illinois police department have apologised for an offensive recruitment poster, inspired by Call Of Duty.

In a now deleted post on social media, the Peoria police department shared a recruitment poster featuring three armed, white police officers with assault rifles.

The accompanying text read: “Stop playing games and answer the Call Of Duty”, with the last three words written in the same font as Activision Blizzard’s blockbuster franchise.

The poster was quickly criticised, with many pointing out that taking inspiration from a game where a player’s primary focus is to shoot as many people as possible perhaps isn’t the best way to recruit police officers.

Last year, Police officers in North America shot and killed over 1100 people, according to Statista. Mapping Police Violence also reports that in Illinois, Black people are over six times more likely to be killed by police than white people.

Following the backlash, the Call Of Duty-inspired poster was taken down [though can still be seen here] and Police Chief Eric Echevarria released a statement via the Peoria Journal Star.

“It was never my intention to offend any of our community members with the recruitment flyer that was posted on our Facebook page yesterday. It was simply a recruitment image I thought would appeal and connect to a younger generation,” he wrote.

“I take ownership of this, and I sincerely apologise. Our goal is to recruit the best and most qualified officers for this police department in the most caring and respectful way.”

An updated recruitment video has since been shared.

Last month, it was confirmed that future Call Of Duty games will be launched “day one” on Xbox Game Pass.

In other news, fans have been creating mashups between Caroline Polachek songs and iconic scores from The Legend Of Zelda.

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