Antioch police text scandal tests mayor’s leadership
The newly disclosed racist, sexist and homophobic texts exchanged by members of the Antioch Police Division are vile.
The boasting about capturing Black males with rubber bullets and kicking one man’s head like a “discipline objective,” admissions of falsifying police stories and claims that bigoted language may be bandied round in entrance of supervisors with no repercussions are abhorrent.
The cops who despatched the messages or signaled approval shouldn’t be carrying a badge and gun. They need to haven’t any place in regulation enforcement.
However even they’re entitled to due course of. Not all of them have equal culpability. And if their rights aren’t revered, the town dangers undermining the continued felony and inner affairs investigations into their conduct, which might set again the hunt for racial justice.
Which is why Metropolis Council members, particularly Mayor Lamar Thorpe, must step again and let investigators do their work — and cease making politically charged feedback that might jeopardize the result.
The texts are contained in two investigative stories obtained this week by this information group that element scores of racist messages shared amongst greater than two dozen officers over two years. The texts had been found amid an ongoing FBI and Contra Costa District Legal professional’s Workplace felony investigation of greater than a dozen present and former Antioch and Pittsburg cops.
A federal grand jury is at present weighing charging officers with assault underneath coloration of authority, fraud, distribution of steroids and cocaine, in addition to eliciting false confessions and accepting bribes to make visitors tickets go away.
Individually, the town has employed exterior investigators to conduct inner affairs investigations of the officers’ conduct to find out who must be fired and if any of them must be allowed to remain on the police drive.
The fallout is staggering. Roughly 20% of the Antioch cops have been suspended. Prosecutors and protection attorneys are inspecting which circumstances the offending officers dealt with that must be dismissed due to their bias and dishonesty. We’re speaking about probably hundreds of people who find themselves going through fees, who’ve already been convicted or who’ve already served their time.
Antioch residents have good purpose to be outraged. However their elected leaders have a duty to chorus from histrionics and respect the continued course of to make sure these accountable are held accountable.
For the mayor, which means appearing like a frontrunner quite than an uninhibited politician. It’s time for Thorpe to indicate restraint and cease demanding that officers be fired, doubtlessly giving legitimacy to future claims the cops would possibly elevate of a politicized course of. What the mayor says now can be utilized later towards the reason for racial justice in a court docket of regulation to assist unhealthy officers get their jobs again.
Thorpe has been a sufferer of the abusive police texts. Nobody must be focused like that. However that doesn’t justify the mayor’s personal actions, together with his disproportionate tirade at a council assembly this week by which he accused a resident who was vital of his management of being a racist.
Thorpe has a historical past of alcohol-fueled and misogynistic conduct that, as we’ve beforehand mentioned, make him unfit for workplace. It’s unlucky that the town doesn’t have higher management. But when Thorpe cares about holding unhealthy cops accountable, he must get a grip and exhibit the maturity that the second requires.
In the meantime, Thorpe and the remainder of the Metropolis Council majority want to finish their tried energy seize to take direct authority for hiring the police chief away from the town supervisor and provides it to themselves. It’s a transfer that might politicize the job of police chief, which is the very last thing the town wants.
Town at present has a extremely regarded chief in Steven Ford, who has an extended historical past of main police reform in San Francisco. He inherited this Antioch mess of renegade cops — the textual content messages and felony conduct underneath investigation predate his tenure — and has moved appropriately to position them on depart pending the outcomes of the investigations and produce reforms to the division.
Whereas it’d enhance some councilmembers’ quest for energy to have direct management over the chief, it’s inappropriate. The chief and the division must be held to excessive requirements, however they need to even be insulated from politics.
To make sure correct supervision of the police chief, the council ought to as a substitute give attention to the hiring of his boss. Town wants a brand new metropolis supervisor — this time, somebody with expertise main a metropolis authorities. Final time by way of, they employed Con Johnson, who had no metropolis supervisor expertise and lasted just a bit over a 12 months earlier than he was positioned on depart final month.
Town faces a disaster in its Police Division. However, to rid the division of racist and corrupt cops, the response have to be methodical and managed. It is a time for calm, skilled management. It stays to be seen whether or not the Metropolis Council majority, particularly the mayor, can meet the second.
