Missouri Department of Transportation under fire after editing young boy's Trump gear out of a photo shared to the department's Facebook page

The Missouri Department of Transportation's Northeast District was forced to issue a public apology after editing a photo of a young boy dressed in a pro-Trump T-shirt and cap.

The boy, Mitchel Lemons from Nebo, Illinois, won the chance to push a detonator on an explosive device intended to destroy two spans of a redundant bridge. On Friday, MoDOT crews demolished the old Champ Clark Bridge in Louisiana, Missouri, which spanned the distance of the Mississippi River for the last 90 years.

MoDOT shared a photo of the boy on its Facebook page with the Trump 2020 logo cropped out of his shirt and the Trump name removed from his hat.

What are the details?

According to KSDK-TV, the initial post drew heavy criticism for its decision to very obviously alter the young boy's clothing.

After the outcry, MoDOT issued an apology on Facebook and showed Mitchel's pro-Trump gear in its entirety.

The apology read, "We apologize for the error in judgment in editing this photo. Here is the original post and photo: Mitchel Lemons ... gets his trigger finger ready to push the detonator for the first blast to take down two spans of the old Champ Clark Bridge. Mitchell won the opportunity to 'push the button' by buying a raffle ticket benefiting local EMS."

MoDOT told the station that they initially decided to edit the Trump logos out of the photo because they didn't want it to appear that they were endorsing Trump.

"Our response to feedback from the original post questioning whether MoDOT was campaigning led to an error in judgment in editing the photo," a spokesperson for the government organization said. "We recognized and apologized for the error and reposted the original photo and Facebook post."

According to KMOV-TV, MoDOT also responded to the outrage of their original post on social media.

"We respect all individuals' choice and edited the picture because many of the comments were detracting from the intent of the post which is to celebrate this young man's excitement to have an opportunity of a lifetime," a comment on Facebook read according to the station.