Can a cop be funny?  Apparently so. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a cop in Buffalo, given that the best way of surviving Buffalo is to have a really good sense of humor.  And yet, that wasn’t shared by Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda.

Move aside, “Saturday Night Live” cast members. Buffalo Police Officer Richard N. Hy’s comedic star is rising.

His outrageous and sometimes crude “Angry Cops” social media videos – aimed at humanizing police by showing that they, too, have a sense of humor – have been viewed more than 6.5 million times and he has more than 22,700 followers.

Unfortunately for him, his humor has cost him his job, at least temporarily, as he has been suspended without pay for a month and brought up on disciplinary charges.

Was Hy “tarnishing the badge,” or was he just a funny cop?

“Some of us don’t think it is funny. We found it to be utterly unprofessional. It doesn’t send a good message out to the public and affects everyone in the department,” said one police officer with more than 20 years on the force. “We realize Hy has only had a few years on the job, but we wonder if he has the maturity to carry out his duties after viewing these. We wonder how he could be taken seriously in court. Maybe he should have been a comedian. If he were a doctor, would you go to him?”

So other cops don’t think he’s funny? Everyone’s a critic. But is he a good cop?

Hy, a member of the department’s Strike Force unit, also is not looking for a new career in entertainment.

“He loves his job. He loves serving and protecting our community,” Milewski, a Buffalo resident, said of Hy, who also lives in the city.

During his time on Strike Force, his friends said, he has made more than 300 arrests and confiscated more than 20 illegal street guns.

While his videos may well be fabulously funny, and he makes no bones about the fact that the comedian has a day job, Hy is clearly still very much a real cop. Want to bet that the people he arrests aren’t laughing?

Supporters in the Police Department say Hy more than proved himself as a police officer able to show restraint in an extreme situation last October when a video made the rounds on social media. It showed Hy struggling with a man on the ground at Hudson Street and Busti Avenue on the West Side. The video also included a woman, off camera, repeatedly screaming and cursing at the officer, accusing him of choking the man “for no reason.”

It was later learned that Hy was trying to keep the man from choking on 39 bags of crack cocaine he had swallowed and later expelled at a hospital.

Whether there is a connection between having a good sense of humor, maybe being able to laugh at himself, and being the sort of cop who tries to save a drug dealer from choking on bags of crack isn’t clear.  But it certainly doesn’t hurt.

His boss, Commissioner Derenda, however, isn’t amused.

But for Hy to find his way back into the good graces of his superiors, he will have to learn how to obey orders. This is not his first dust-up for allegedly violating departmental policies by posting videos of himself.

About a year ago, he received a reprimand to stop posting videos that showed him as a police officer.

While it’s understandable that the department has some concerns, even if Hy wasn’t wearing an actual Buffalo police uniform in his videos, the question remains whether he has a First Amendment right to have some fun on the internets without suffering discipline by a humorless boss.

Buffalo attorney Paul J. Cambria Jr., who specializes in First Amendment cases, said free speech protections do not always apply.

“Some police activity is not protected by the First Amendment, say if you do something that negatively impacts your employer who is trying to maintain dignity and integrity,” Cambria said. “Fun loving? You can do all you want, so long as it doesn’t denigrate your employer.”

While it may be unwise for a cop to piss off his department for a variety of reasons, there is some serious doubt that Paul’s position accurately reflects Hy’s free speech rights. Hy isn’t the first cop to put his first amendment rights on the internets. Nor is he the first cop to exercise his free speech rights while making sure his listeners know he’s a cop.

A public employee’s First Amendment rights are somewhat curtailed, but not quite forfeited.

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court distinguished the speech of a person as a private individual from the speech of the same person as an official representative of government.  When speaking in his official capacity, speech is constrained by the limits and requirements of the public employer.

As the Court’s decisions have noted, for many years “the unchallenged dogma was that a public employee had no right to object to conditions placed upon the terms of employment—including those which restricted the exercise of constitutional rights.”Connick, 461 U. S., at 143. That dogma has been qualified in important respects. See id., at 144-145. The Court has made clear that public employees do not surrender all their First Amendment rights by reason of their employment. Rather, the First Amendment protects a public employee’s right, in certain circumstances, to speak as a citizen addressing matters of public concern. See, e. g., Pickering, supra,at 568; Connick, supra, at 147; Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 384 (1987);United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S. 454, 466 (1995).

When a citizen enters government service, the citizen by necessity must accept certain limitations on his or her freedom. . . . Public employees, moreover, often occupy trusted positions in society. When they speak out, they can express views that contravene governmental policies or impair the proper performance of governmental functions.

Did Richard Hy cross the line making it clear that he was a Buffalo police officer doing comedy shtick online?  Was it a step too far to wear a uniform, even if it wasn’t a real uniform?  Perhaps. But the fact that his comedy may not have presented the “dignified image” his employer (and some of his fellow officers) hoped to maintain isn’t a basis for discipline. That’s kinda what free speech is all about, even when it comes from a cop with a sense of humor.

Update:  The First Amendment died a little in Buffalo.

Officer Richard N. Hy returned to work late Wednesday after serving a 22-day unpaid suspension and agreeing to obey the department’s social media policy, which he violated by appearing in a police uniform and portraying himself in off-the-wall situations that police brass felt demeaned the force.

But soon after going back to work, Hy posted a new video on his “Angry Cops” Vine social media site, this time portraying himself as a firefighter. “You know there is a saying,” Hy says with a grin on his face. “When one door closes, another door opens.” As he utters the words, Hy puts on a firefighter’s helmet.

The good news is he’s back. The bad news is he’s shifted gears and won’t do cop comedy anymore.  Firefighter comedy? Not the same.

H/T Kathleen Casey