An officer in the Boston Police Department was suspended yesterday for allegedly writing a racially charged e-mail about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to colleagues at the National Guard, a law enforcement official said. Mayor Thomas M. Menino compared the officer to a cancer and said he is "gone, g-o-n-e'' from the force.What Officer Barrett actually said in the e-mail was, let's see, "If I was the officer [Gates] verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC [pepper spray] deserving of his belligerent non-compliance."
The law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Officer Justin Barrett referred to the black scholar as a " jungle monkey" in the letter, written in reaction to media coverage of Gates's arrest July 16.Barrett, a 36-year-old who has been on the job for two years, was stripped of his gun and badge yesterday and faces a termination hearing in the next week, said police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. He has no previous disciplinary record, she said.
"Yesterday afternoon, Commissioner Davis was made aware that Officer Barrett was the author of correspondence which included racially charged language," she said. "At that time, Commissioner Davis immediately stripped Officer Barrett of his gun and badge, and at this time we will be moving forward with the hearing process."
Bonus twenty points for correct usage of "belligerent non-compliance", several trillion points docked as well as loss of job due to the racial epithet. Boy, gotta love post-racism America. My only question is "I wonder which right-wing crackpot will blame Obama for this guy getting fired first?"
I foresee a concern troll post where racism in general is lamented by all parties involved, but some variation of the phrase "But one has to wonder if Officer Barrett would still have his job right now if the President had only chosen to stay above the fray in the Gates case last week" is coming. You can count on it like the sun comes up in morning. It's only a question of who does it first.
Watch.
Me? I'm going to go read. I'm just angry as hell right now.
And my liberal brethren wonder why I am a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. This guy had no previous disciplinary record! Do you think this is the first time he has ever expressed those racist views? The problem is systemic. Not all cops are racists but the thin blue line obviously tolerates this shit.
ReplyDelete3:30 AM and this one still is pissing me off.
ReplyDeleteIt's the comments about Gates and Obama that you're not seeing that really bother me.
And this officer was supposedly trained to "prevent racial profiling".
It's going to be a long summer.
Long summer my ass, it's going to be several long years.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've read the email it is apparent that if you are a black male or a woman of any race you are not worthy of any respect in this guys world. The use of "ax" multiple times and the "serving me coffee and donuts" are a dead give away. Sheesh.
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