Some say he did it. Other say there is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks that he did it. Then there are those that say he was set up to be a fall guy.

What we know is the original complainant against Port Arthur Police Officer Rickey Antoine claimed that in lieu of paying for a ticket, he was asked to go to a men’s store in the mall where he could then pay for a pair of shoes that would ultimately be picked up by Antoine. The complainant also said a number of other citizens were willing to state the same happened to them.

After these allegations surfaced, Antoine was initially placed on “paid administrative leave” while the department conducted an internal investigation, which is proper procedure. Ultimately this was advanced to “suspended indefinitely,” which is basically the same as terminated.

Antoine, denying the allegations all along, hired an attorney to file appeal and help clear his name. Last week it was announced that after nine months away from the job, Officer Rickey Antoine, “The Ticket Machine,” was back with the Port Arthur Police Department full time. Hold on, a terminated police officer back on the force? How can this be?

After the story of Antoine’s reinstatement ran on the front page of The Port Arthur News last Sunday, social media was abuzz with comments of support as well as many comments of frustrations feeling an injustice was done.

We all know social media can be a very mean place where people who don’t know the facts about a situation can go and share their opinions. And they do.

They will even share negative opinions that insinuate guilt about a person, minus knowledge of any proof, simply relying on what someone else said. Guilty until proven innocent? I think not. In these United States of America, for someone to be guilty, there must be proof.

To our knowledge the only complaint filed was from the original complainant. No other citizens came forward to corroborate. Nor were any charges of criminal misconduct filed against Antoine by the city of Port Arthur.

So for a police officer to get his job back, there was either lack of proof or the accusations were false. Whether you believe it or not is up to you. But if you are ever accused like Antoine was, and you didn’t do what you were accused of, I’d bet you would be praying the system works for you just as it did for him.

Welcome back, Officer Antoine.

Rich Macke is publisher of the Port Arthur News.