Boston Police Officer Suspended for Racial Slurs

[Jenn! 918]

Officer suspended for Gates slur in e-mail

July 29, 2009 07:35 PM By Matt Collette, Globe Correspondent

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.

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."

Barrett will receive legal representation from Boston Police Patrolmen's Assocation, the police officer's union. A woman who answered the phone at the police association said that union president Thomas J. Nee was not available for comment, but said he would be releasing a statement this evening.

Barrett could not immediately be reached for comment.

Menino said he was angry when Davis informed him of the incident Tuesday night. Of the suspended officer, Menino said he told Davis: "He has no place in this department and we have to take his badge away. That stuff doesn't belong in our city and we're not going to tolerate it.''

The mayor stressed that the incident was about one officer, and ''one officer doesn't make up a police department."

Menino, speaking to the Globe before an evening event in the South End, said he hadn't seen the e-mail Menino said while the officer is not officially terminated, he might as well be "He's gone, g-o-n-e. I don't care, it's like cancer, you don't keep those cancers around."

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[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

He's probably a Republican. We can't hold mental-deficients to the same standards of speech. They lack the impulse control and temperaments normal human beings. We should let them be, maybe institutionalize them.

[justashooter 430]

ridiculous. the policeman must be white.

a hispanic policeman can beat up a white girl in a quicky mart after his son's car hits hers in a traffic accident and walk away, but this guy can't claim to be an ex english teacher and write so poorly that we think he is from the MENA section.

a travesty of injustice. people who write poorly should be protected, too. it's a hate crime that he is being terminated.

Edited July 30, 2009 by justashooter

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

I saw the video of his apology, who is the tough guy now? huh?

Edited July 30, 2009 by TävôLuDô

[Otto 83]

Should be more than suspended - should lose some rank and attend some sensitivity classes.

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

the guy is about to lose his job don't worry

ohhhh poetic justice

[Ban Hammer 13,332]

He's probably a Republican. We can't hold mental-deficients to the same standards of speech. They lack the impulse control and temperaments normal human beings. We should let them be, maybe institutionalize them.

why not just shoot them? kill whitey!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Should be more than suspended - should lose some rank and attend some sensitivity classes.

Those classes are a joke. Even the people who teach them make snide remarks about how stupid they are. I've sat through a few, mandatory ####### about tolerating the disabled and LGBT (or is that LBTG? whatever).

He's probably a Republican. We can't hold mental-deficients to the same standards of speech. They lack the impulse control and temperaments normal human beings. We should let them be, maybe institutionalize them.

why not just shoot them? kill whitey!

Lots of white people aren't brain-dead conservatives. It's just the latter that are the problem.

[HAL 9000 96]

Holy cow! Talk about rant rant rant.

[Ban Hammer 13,332]

He's probably a Republican. We can't hold mental-deficients to the same standards of speech. They lack the impulse control and temperaments normal human beings. We should let them be, maybe institutionalize them.

why not just shoot them? kill whitey!

Lots of white people aren't brain-dead conservatives. It's just the latter that are the problem.

gotta make sure you get all of them bad genes! round them all up and gas them!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

gotta make sure you get all of them bad genes! round them all up and gas them!

See, that's classic conservative brain-dead thinking right there

[mawilson 2,133]

... if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.

Non-compliance? In his own home?

Then these asswipes wonder why people hate cops.

[Ban Hammer 13,332]

gotta make sure you get all of them bad genes! round them all up and gas them!

See, that's classic conservative brain-dead thinking right there

i'm just trying to help the left out, since they can't even organize a trip to the bathroom

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Seems kinda surprising that he'd be fired for that - be curious to know what the exact nature of the "correspondence" to the national guard was.

The mayor is grandstanding, of course.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

... if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.

Non-compliance? In his own home?

Then these asswipes wonder why people hate cops.

Bingo.