With nearly 40% of its residents identifying as Middle Eastern or North African, Dearborn Heights, Michigan, has had a longstanding relationship with its Arabic-speaking community.

On Wednesday, the Dearborn Heights Police Department posted a photo on Facebook of a digital mock-up of a Dearborn Heights police patch, which featured the words "Dearborn Heights Police" in both English and Arabic. In the post, the department identified the officer who designed the patch and said the design "is another way we [Dearborn Heights Police Department] continue to celebrate the rich cultures that make our city unique."

The department also stated in the post that the patch was "optional." It would mark the first police patch in the country to feature the Arabic language. 

The police department later disabled comments on that post after dozens of Facebook users expressed concern and frustration with the design before ultimately deleting the post and photo from its Facebook page.  

The Facebook post went viral after publications, like Breitbart News, posted on X about it Thursday afternoon.

Despite the patch design not being related to Islam, the post has sparked Islamophobic comments. 

High-profile right-wing political activists weighed in, including Laura Loomer, who called the patch "Sharia Law in America," and Charlie Kirk, who said in a post on X, "When you get conquered, you get a new language."

Since then, city leaders have sought to clarify their intent in coming up with the mock-up patch. 

On Friday, Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi said it was only intended for "internal discussions" and should not have been presented as an official prototype.

"Should efforts like this be formally undertaken to make any changes to the Police uniform, it is our goal to include multiple PD stakeholders for a larger conversation, to ensure all are included in the discussion.  As we are one PD, each individual's uniform represents the DHPD as a whole, and therefore merits the review and input of all," said Bazzi in a post on the Dearborn Heights Police Department's Facebook page. 

In response to city leaders, the executive boards of the Dearborn Heights Police Officers Association and Dearborn Heights Police Supervisors Association called Dearborn Heights Police Chief Ahmed Haidar's decision to release the image "reckless."

The Dearborn Heights Police Officers Association says the original intent behind the design, which was created by an officer, was to have a commemorative patch for officers to wear during the month of Ramadan and "in support of our Muslim community."

But the association said Haidar subsequently offered the patch "for everyone in the department to wear year-round," an action that it said, "made many of our officers feel segregated within the police department."  The statement said that when they raised these concerns and "potential negative repercussions" with the police chief, he "dismissed and refuted" them. 

Haidar's decision has "unnecessarily placed the lives of our officers in harm's way," the association said, claiming that there had been "countless threats and criticisms made to not only the senior officer, but to the entire police department as a whole."  The association's statement did not detail what kind of threats had been made.

"It is unacceptable that their safety should ever be jeopardized by leadership's poor decision-making. Reckless choices at the top do not just endanger those in uniform; they undermine morale, weaken trust, and place the entire community at risk," the association said in a statement. 

CBS News Detroit reached out to the police department for further comment.