About

The "Officer Down!" Star is a meme showing a clipart star with balloons, confetti and party poppers celebrating the injury or death of a police officer with text reading, "OFFICER DOWN!" in all caps. The reaction image was used to humorously celebrate cops being shot and mixed law enforcement lingo with childish imagery. It was most commonly used on Tumblr in posts related to the ACAB movement. The "Officer Down!" Star became an exploitable in an ongoing image macro series starting in the 2020s. Meme creators recaptioned the original meme's text, commonly replacing the word "officer" when using the snowclone "X Down!" Notable examples include "CEO Down!" which trended en masse after the Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. A balloon with the "CEO Down!" meme was reportedly placed at the scene of the crime a day after the shooting, presumably by a prankster celebrating the healthcare executive's death.

Origin

On December 20th, 2014, Twitter / X^[1][2] user @Loot_Back shared the earliest known upload of the "Officer Down!" Star (shown below). The tweet received eight likes in two years. It was later deleted.

Spread

The image was added to the Internet Archive ^[3] as early as January 9th, 2015. The JPG file was captured four times from 2015 to 2017 on the Wayback Machine.^[4]

However, viral usage didn't accrue until 2019, predominantly following a post shared by Tumblr^[5] user asundergrowth on January 15th, who wrote, "This is one of the funniest fucking images on the internet I swear to god," receiving over 30,400 notes in five years (shown below).

The abovementioned post was screenshotted and reposted on sites like Reddit, evident in a post shared to /r/tumblr^[6] in June 2019.

On March 28th, 2020, Tumblr^[9] user sapropel used the meme to joke about a headline concerning an NYPD detective who was reportedly the first officer to pass away in America from COVID-19, gaining over 9,200 notes in four years (shown below).

The meme was also used following the Death of George Floyd and amid the 2020 protests in America concerning his death. For instance, on July 17th, Tumblr^[10] user cerastes reblogged a post about an officer dying in the protests from friendly fire, earning over 12,500 likes in four years (shown below).

The image was recaptioned in the following months and years, giving the meme new contexts. For instance, on October 3rd, 2020, Tumblr^[11] user birlinterrupted posted an iteration reading, "President Down!" gaining over 17,000 notes in four years (shown below).

On August 5th, 2021, Tumblr^[7][8] user notravian restored the original meme, writing in a reblog, "I couldn't find the original font so I just had to find the closest looking one." The post received over 22,700 likes and 16,600 reblogs in three years (shown below).

"CEO Down!"

On July 10th, 2023, Tumblr^[12] user kingscrown666 created an iteration reading, "Billionaire Down!" concerning a news headline about a billionaire passing away during an enlargement surgery, receiving over 34,100 likes in a year (shown below).

On December 4th, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated in New York City. On the day, X^[13] user @mccahell tweeted an iteration of the meme, reading, "Healthcare CEO Down!" The post gained over 34,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On December 5th, the Daily Mail shared a TikTok^[14] video showing that an unknown prankster left a balloon with a "CEO Down!" meme at the scene of Thompson's murder. The video received over 9.2 million plays and 739,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References