SAN Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr recommended that several officers allegedly involved in the exchange of “reprehensible” text messages about lynching Blacks and burning crosses, among other topics, be fired.
“It just makes me sick to even talk about this,” Suhr told reporters on Friday, April 3. “There were eight standing officers who engaged in such repulsive conversation via text that I have suspended them and they have been referred to the police commission with a recommendation of only termination.”
The police chief is moving to fire a captain, a sergeant and six other officers involved in the incident.
Text messages, sent in 2011 and 2012 among up to 14 officers in the department, contained racist and homophobic slurs against gays, African Americans, Filipinos and Mexicans, police said.
In one text sent on Nov. 9, 2011, an unidentified individual asked convicted Sgt. Ian Furminger, “Do you celebrate quanza [sic] at your school?”
He responded, “Yeah we burn the cross on the field! Then we celebrate Whitemas.”
The text messages were discovered during an FBI investigation of corruption involving Furminger, Reuters reported. Officials told the San Francisco Chronicle that three of the eight officers have either already resigned or informed police they plan on doing so.
On Friday, Suhr announced he has requested a police oversight committee to approve firing the officers. One linked to the investigation has already resigned, while six others are facing disciplinary actions that entail reassignment to positions that do not involve contact with the public, according to the Associated Press.
Two officers who engaged in the exchange of inflammatory texts have been reassigned to non-public contact positions. Their cases will be considered by the police commission, which can issue penalties up to termination.
The punishment for four others who did not send “hate speech” texts will be determined by Suhr, who can suspend an officer with no pay for up to 10 days.
The texts “are of such despicable thinking that those responsible clearly fall below the minimum standards required to be a police officer,” Suhr said in a statement.
Prosecutors said the exchanges offer insight into the personal life of a cop corrupt both in character and conduct.
“Furminger actively promotes the fantasy that he is a person of character, pointing to awards that he has received as a police officer,” they wrote. “In doing so, he simply disregards the conduct for which he was convicted. … He also fails to advise the court that he is a virulent racist and homophobe.”
Lawyers representing the officers said the texts don’t represent their clients’ opinions, but rather were naïve banter to cope with the stress of their jobs.
“The characterization of these hateful statements as innocent banter is dead wrong,” said public defender Jeff Adachi. “This casual dehumanization leads to real life suffering and injustice. It foments a toxic environment in which citizens fear and distrust the police, brutality reigns, and good officers are less effective.”
Additionally, Adachi told the Chronicle he recommends that the officers undergo 25 hours of racial bias training.
In a city home to a significant gay and lesbian population, and known for inclusiveness and diversity, the revelation has brought about concerns that officers may have previously abused their authority.
“Although these sort of overtly racist views sadly still are expressed in some communities, it is shocking and appalling to find a police officer in San Francisco who would give voice to them,” according to court documents.
District Attorney George Gason said his office plans on reviewing any cases throughout the past decade that were linked to the implicated officers, Associated Press reported. The number of cases could be more than 1,000 in which an officer wrote a report, submitted evidence or testified in court, Gason said.
The scandal follows a string of recent similar incidents that have taken place nationwide.
In March, four police officers in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. were fired after the uncovering of a racist video and vile text messages, including one that read, “We are coming and drinking all your beer and killing n****s.”
Another Florida incident involved three former corrections officers who were arrested by the FBI in a Ku Klux Klan murder plot to kill a former inmate they had previously guarded.
The San Francisco Police Officers Association issued a statement saying the actions of the officers were not emblematic of individuals it represents.
(With reports from Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA MIDWEEK April 8-10, 2015 Sec. A pg.1)
