Former Orlando Police Department Chief and current US Senate candidate Val Demings needled Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker after he flaunted an honorary sheriff’s star by showing off her real police badge.
Ms Demings is currently a Congresswoman representing Florida’s 10th district.
On Tuesday, Ms Demings posted a photo of herself holding her Orlando Police Department badge along with the caption "This one’s real."
Ms Demings spent nearly 30 years working for the Orlando Police Department and served as its chief for five years.
The gibe was aimed at Mr Walker, who produced an honorary sheriff’s star after his Democratic opponent, incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock, claimed the Republican was pretending to be a police officer.
After Mr Walker flashed his badge, the audience laughed and the debate’s moderator, Tina Tyus-Shaw, chastised Mr Walker for breaking the rules by bringing a "prop" on-stage.
"It’s not a prop, it’s real," Mr Walker shot back.
The Republican candidate was met with mockery by critics on social media and, apparently in a response to the moderator calling his badge a "prop," posted a video on Monday with Mr Rowland to prove his affiliation with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department.
"If Herschel’s badge is a prop, then I guess this badge I wear every day to protect the citizen is a prop also," Mr Rowland says in the video. "But these are real badges and I gave this to my friend for all he’s done for this country and this county."
According to NBC News, Mr Rowland acknowledged that while the badge is a genuine sheriff’s badge, it grants no power to Mr Walker to act as a law enforcement officer.
“It’s a real badge, exactly like the one I wear every day. Now, he doesn’t have arrest powers or anything like that,” he said in an interview.
However, in an interview with NBC News, Mr Walker claimed that the "badge give me the right … if anything happened in this county, I have the right to work with the police getting things done."
According to the executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, J Terry Norris, honorary badges like the one Mr Walker owns are frequently given by sheriffs to individuals who support law enforcement, but do not provide law enforcement powers.
Mr Warnock was not impressed by Mr Walker’s explanation.
“My opponent, Herschel Walker, is not ready,” Mr Warnock told reporters on Monday. “I pointed out the fact that he claimed to be in law enforcement — to be a police officer — and that he threatened a shootout with the police. And his response was to produce a fake badge? The people of Georgia deserve a serious person to represent them in serious times.”
While Mr Warnock and Mr Walker battle in Georgia, Ms Demings has set her sight on unseating the incumbent Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio.
The opponents sparred on Tuesday during a debate that touched on inflation, abortion, voting rights, gun violence, immigration and foreign policy.
