San Francisco Cops Sending Racist Texts Could Go Unpunished

When a San Francisco police bureau decided to protect its officers and delay in reporting their racist text messages to officials they could have been laying the groundwork to shield them from discipline.

The delay in punishing the officers means the one-year deadline for disciplining the 14 officers involved in texting racist and homophobic messages has passed and they could escape justice.

The 14 San Francisco police officers are involved in a texting scandal where officials discovered a number of homophobic and racists messages, as reported by the Inquisitr.

The racist text messages refer to black people as monkeys and say cross-burning lowers blood pressure.

“Get ur pocket gun. Keep it available in case the monkey returns to his roots. Its not against the law to put an animal down. You may have to kill the half-breeds too. Don’t worry. Their an abomination of nature anyway.”

The delay in disciplining the officers stems from a case in 2012 where three of the officers were indicted and a court order was issued to prohibit their lawyers from disclosing certain information.

The court order was never intended to include the police department, however, which brings into question statements made by police chief Greg Suhr, who said he only recently discovered the racist text messages, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We were walled of by the protective order. I did not become aware (of the messages) until January.”

Suhr suspended the officers in question after discovering the racist and homophobic texts and referred eight of them for termination and six for disciplinary action.

If the police commission accepts the officer’s arguments, however, they could escape punishment and keep their jobs. At least one of the officers has already escaped discipline in a separate case because the department took too long to take action.

Two of the officers involved in the scandal have already resigned.

The San Francisco police department has been trying to avoid charges of racism lately after the text message scandal, but continued accusations don’t help.

Earlier this month the department, along with federal agents were accused of making racially motivated arrests. The two departments conducted a joint sting operation to clean up city streets and go after drug dealers near schools, however all 37 people arrested were black, according to SFBay.ca

Sheigla Murphy, a sociologist cited in court documents, was reported by the Inquisitr as saying there should be more than just black people in custody.

Other races do, in fact, sell controlled substances in the Tenderloin.