At a Facebook page, NYC police officers called people marching in the West Indian American Day Parade that celebrates Carribean culture "animals," "savages," and "filth." "Let them kill each other" or, alternatively, someone should "drop a bomb and wipe them all out."
These police officers viewed the parade itself as a "scheduled riot" where "'civilians' can run around like savages and there are no repercussions." Other posters characterized the parade as "ethnic cleansing" while another comment said the parade should be "moved to the zoo." The FB group was formed because the police officers were "forced to be victims themselves by the violence of the West Indian Day massacre."
These were some of the comments posted in a Facebook conversation by police officers "until it vanished for unknown reasons." The only reason we know about these racist remarks is that The New York Times obtained a copy of these postings before they were deleted. These comments were evidence in a criminal case, but no one paid attention. So, the defense lawyers submitted a digital copy of the FB chat to the NYT. At the trial, the prosecutor read to the jury a "cautionary posting" that "This is not a racist rant. This is about us, the cops."
Comments posted at FB were so offensive that even some of the participants warned to exercise caution in case there were "rats" observing:
The comments in the online group, which grew over a few days to some 1,200 members, were at times so offensive in referring to West Indian and African-American neighborhoods that some participants warned others to beware how their words might be taken in a public setting open to Internal Affairs "rats."
While the NYT noted that it was not possible to determine if the comments were actually posted by police officers, they were able to match some of the posters' names with the names of polices officers:
It is impossible to say with certainty whether those quoted are the people they claim to be. But a comparison by The Times of the names of some of the more than 150 people who posted comments on the page with city employee listings showed that more than 60 percent matched the names of police officers, and Mr. Browne did not deny that they were officers. Of course, some people do circumvent Facebook’s rule on identification.
It was impossible to determine the racial breakdown of the officers who were posting comments, but at least one of the participants said that most of them seemed not to be minorities.
The police department has referred the case to internal affairs. The New York Civil Liberties Union is defending the free speech rights of the police officers. While police have a "right to speak freely in their private lives," the NYT article noted that the Police Department has rules "barring officers from 'discourteous or disrespectful remarks' about race or ethnicity."
Moreover, while I support our First Amendment, it's not just a matter of words when words show an attitude of some police that view themselves in a war against the people they are supposed to serve and protect. Add into the mix their dehumanization of people and militarization of police.
And that's the problem: racism institutionalized by policies and practice:
“What concerns me is the racist language used here matches up with racist NYPD policies such as stop, question and frisk,” said City Council member Jumaane Williams, who was wrongfully arrested during the parade.
In 2011, there was a 13% increase in New Yorkers stopped and frisked or 514,000 people. A report by the Center for Constitution Rights that analyzed NYPD data for 2005-2008 found that 80% of the people stopped and frisked were Blacks and Latinos, who only constitute 25% and 28% of the population, respectively.
When I read this news story, I thought about the racism embedded in our Declaration of Independence in the list of "repeated injuries and usurpations" by King George III against the American colonies:
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.