MINNEAPOLIS — The mayor of Minneapolis isn’t flashing a gang sign in a photo quickly gaining traction online, but rather pointing at a man helping in a voting campaign, her spokeswoman and community groups said Friday in response to allegations made in a television report and by a police union.

KSTP-TV aired a report Thursday night quoting the head of the Minneapolis police union saying that the Nov. 1 photo of Mayor Betsy Hodges and a community activist, who are pointing a finger at each other with their thumbs raised, shows the pair flashing a known gang sign.

The report was swiftly criticized on social media, with hundreds of tweets ridiculing the report or calling it racist. Many show photos of U.S. presidents, Pope Francis and even Cookie Monster using similar hand gestures, under the hashtag (hash)Pointergate.

Hodges’s spokeswoman, Kate Brickman, told The Associated Press on Friday that the photo merely shows the mayor and Navell Gordon, an employee of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change “pointing at each other” while knocking on doors to get out the vote in north Minneapolis. She said the mayor has many photos on her Facebook page showing her making the same gesture with others.

KSTP News Director Lindsay Radford stood by the report Friday. She issued a statement saying law-enforcement sources, whom she didn’t name, alerted the station to the photo and said it could jeopardize officers’ safety or their work on the street, “especially given the recent increase in gang violence.”