A screenshot of Adam Cunningham, one of four candidates for City Council, on a YouTube video where he made comments on a police interaction involving a man tased multiple times and later dying in the hospital. (Screenshot: YouTube)

Community members on Reddit and Facebook expressed concern about comments made by Adam Cunningham, a candidate for Wilsonville City Council, on his social media and YouTube accounts.

The comments in question were made on Cunningham’s two YouTube and X accounts, under the names The Cover Officer and Officer Blue Gun. Among other things, Cunningham — who appears on camera in the YouTube videos — encouraged people not to comply with vaccine mandates and wrote “women are for sex” in response to another post. In other videos posted to the YouTube channels, he narrates police body cam footage — at times making jokes about footage of people being arrested by force.

The posts and videos were shared in a Reddit post and also discussed on the People of Wilsonville Facebook page over the weekend.

Posts on social media

In response to criticism of the post on X, Cunningham replied that it was a sarcastic response to “a ridiculous comment.” The original X post was a “Dear Annie” column from The Oregonian on a woman whose partner believes she and her daughters should “know (their) place as women”, and one reply to the post implied that the woman should sleep with the partner’s friends “on her way out but only if they’re more evolved than he is which sounds like it would be a low bar.” Cunningham replied to this post saying “This guy gets it. Women are for sex.” Responding on Facebook to concerns over the comment, Cunningham said that his reply “was a sarcastic response to a ridiculous comment.”

Another screenshot shared to a Wilsonville Facebook group shows Cunningham saying “Apparently you cannot say that a little (bull)ying is a good thing. I got (bull)ied as a kid. I got sick of it and improved myself.” The comment was made after a previous post in the thread, with a post reading “not just good, but necessary to maintaining a healthy society” as a comment to a since-deleted post.

In another post Cunningham tells an X user that “communists like you should get more one way rides on helicopters.” The comment was made in response to a person who wrote that they understood why protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza vandalized a library at Portland State University.

Among other screenshots that Facebook users found concerning was one showing Cunningham writing “Please get a job. I don’t want to pay for your food” to a commenter asking for food stamps to be extended.

Videos on YouTube channels

Cunningham’s YouTube accounts mostly show police interactions with commentary from Cunningham. There are also several videos encouraging people not to comply with state vaccine mandates in 2021.

A video titled, “Leaky Tweaker Rides The LIGHTNING!” shows body camera footage of a police officer arresting a woman who was tased multiple times while being arrested. Cunningham says at the beginning of the video “today we’re going to ask the question, ‘How many times can you tase a tweaker until she goes into fake seizures?’” The woman says in the video that she will have a seizure as officers continually tase her, stating that she is resisting arrest, while attempting to handcuff her. At the end of the video, she appears to have a seizure, while the officer asks “are you done?”

Cunningham comments in the video “Personally, I wouldn’t have tased her that much. I would have found other ways to go about it,” adding that use of force is “never a pretty thing, it’s almost always really, really ugly.” In the video Cunningham counts that the woman was tased nine times.

“Some people will rush to harshly criticize the actions of the officer while ignoring the simple fact that this all could have been avoided if the woman just put her hands behind her back and didn’t resist like a shrieking child. Those same people have probably also never tried to wrestle a tweaker into handcuffs on the dirty floor of a Walmart,” Cunningham said in the caption of the video.

Another video titled “BLM Won’t Riot Over This (Until Tuesday)” shows body camera footage of police arresting Keenan Anderson, a Black teacher from Los Angeles who died from cardiac arrest in the hospital after being tased multiple times during an arrest. In the video Cunningham invites viewers to give their opinion on if the officers used excessive force, before detailing why he believes the use of force was justified. When the video shows Anderson saying “They’re trying to George Floyd me,” Cunningham remarks, “To be fair, if someone was going to get George Floyd-ed, they would have to ingest a substantial amount of drugs.”

In October 2023, according to the Los Angeles Times, a commission ruled that the officers broke department policy during the arrest.

Responding to Facebook comments expressing concern for the videos, Cunningham wrote “Yes, I have two YouTube channels. They cover law enforcement interactions mostly. The videos utilize jokes.”

Reactions on social media

In a Facebook comment, Miranda Tate mentioned the post saying “women are for sex” and videos “sexualizing the arrest of women,” and wrote, “It is absolutely disgusting behavior and should be disqualifying in of itself.” She added that Cunningham “mocked the death of Keenan Anderson” in the video, and “at a time when our schools are experiencing bullying and racism, we cannot elect Adam to city council.”

Cunningham, in response, said that Tate needs to “cite (her) sources with context.”

“None of this is true. I made a video about Keenan Anderson explaining the police interaction — not mocking his death,” Cunningham said.

Another Facebook comment from George Dunn said he was “genuinely surprised by this,” referring to the social media posts and videos.

“I feel it’s important to say this is not okay. This kind of behavior is concerning and shouldn’t be overlooked,” Dunn said, adding “I’ve come to realize that I may have been too kind in my judgements” and he “would appreciate hearing the perspectives of the other candidates on this matter.”

On Monday the Spokesman independently verified the existence of the accounts and posts. By Monday evening the X accounts appeared to have been deleted.

Cunningham is one of four candidates for City Council. He was a police officer in El Cajon, California before moving to Wilsonville to be an instructor at the Oregon Department of Public Safety, Standards and Training. He described himself as “medically retired” from law enforcement; in one of the videos posted on The Cover Officer, he says he was fired from DPSST when he did not provide proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or a reason for exemption from the state mandate.

After the Spokesman called and emailed Cunningham Monday to ask for comment, he sent the following statement via email: “Text-based social media platforms are notorious for failing to capture nuance in various posts. My comments were clearly meant to be sarcastic.”

He did not reply to follow-up questions Monday afternoon.