Well he has resigned.
Here was the story:
Published on Sep 5, 2014
A Louisiana police officer has resigned after a local news station obtained texts he sent in which he called black people “n*ggers” and “monkeys,” and went so far as to wish “someone would pull a Ferguson on them.” Yikes. WBRZ obtained text messages sent by one Baton Rouge police officer that have some pretty racist sentiments in them. The text read, in part, “They are nothing but a bunch of monkeys. The only reason they have this job is the n*gger, n*gger in them.” The texts also say, “I wish someone would pull a Ferguson on them and take them out. I hate looking at those African monkeys at work… I enjoy arresting those thugs with their saggy pants.”Well, after those texts were exposed earlier this week, the officer who sent them resigned. The local chapter of the NAACP, however, is still calling for a more thorough investigation.
Baton Rouge cop resigns after he’s caught texting desire to ‘pull a Ferguson’ on ‘n*ggers’
A police officer in Baton Rouge resigned Thursday after a local news channel revealed that he sent text messages in which he wished that fellow officers “would pull a Ferguson” on a “bunch of monkeys,” The Advocate reports.
Fifteen-year-veteran Michael Elsbury resigned on Thursday after text messages he sent to a female friend were brought to the attention of his superiors. In one message, Officer Elsbury — whose patrol included the area around the historically black Southern University — wrote that blacks are “nothing but a bunch of monkeys,” and that the “only reason they have this job is the nigger, nigger in them.” It is unclear what “job” he is referring to.
In another text, he wrote that “I wish someone would pull a Ferguson on them and take them out. I hate looking at those African monkeys at work…I enjoy arresting those thugs with their saggy pants.”
The Baton Rouge Police Chief was quick to make this into an isolated incident:
Police Chief Carl Dabadie said that “it was gut-wrenching to believe that someone had that much hate in them, especially a police officer who is out there enforcing the law every day. It made me sick to my stomach.” Chief Dabadie said that he understands how an incident like this could “cast a bad light” on the entire department, but hopes the community can appreciate the alacrity with which the incident was handled.
“I believe this is an isolated incident that occurred between the officer and this girl,” he said. “I do not want this to become a direct reflection on our officers. I have 650 officers, and 649 of them work their butts off every day for the city of Baton Rouge.”
Oh really? Sell me a bayou.
The Baton Rouge PD has been under the eye of the Justice Department. See the history here:
BR police struggle with diversity
In January 2012, former Baton Rouge Police Chief Dewayne White received a memo from a recruiting officer outlining several concerns over the future makeup of the Police Department. The memo refers, in part, to a demographic imbalance that has long frustrated the department’s recruiting division: In a city that has grown increasingly diverse, the Police Department’s force of nearly 700 officers remains overwhelmingly white. Despite efforts to diversify in recent years, “our numbers have stayed consistent throughout each hiring process in all aspects,” the memo states. The recruiting division’s greatest concern, it adds, was that “the diversity numbers are not increasing with each process.”
The memo, along with several years of recruiting data all obtained through a public records request, underscores the challenge the Police Department has faced for decades in fielding a force that reflects the community it serves.White drew new attention to those concerns at his termination hearing last month, claiming the U.S. Justice Department had expressed “grave concern” over the department failing to recruit more minorities and females. As a result, the ousted chief added, the city faced long odds in being released from a 1980 consent decree, an agreement with the federal government that seeks to prevent discriminatory hiring practices within the city’s police and fire departments.
What I found very interesting in this article was this quote from a former Police Captain.
Among the first black women recruited to join the Baton Rouge Police Department was Pam Kidd, who served 30 years and became the agency’s first black female captain.“Some of the white officers did not want to take orders from a female, let alone a black female,” Kidd said last week. “But they overcame. I stood my ground.”
Kidd, who is now retired, added that it is “very challenging” for a majority white police force to earn the trust of black communities. Disillusioned after an historic career, Kidd said she, too, is skeptical of the police now that she is a civilian again.
I haven't lived in Baton Rouge since 1957. We lived on the campus of Southern University, an historically black university. It was an ugly place to be black when you stepped off campus back then.
Will be interesting to see what happens there now. Has it changed much since then?