AP: Use of slurs not 'isolated' at Louisiana State Police
Source: Associated Press
AP: Use of slurs not ‘isolated’ at Louisiana State Police
By JIM MUSTIAN
October 29, 2020
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A Black trooper with the Louisiana State Police was on a break when his cellphone buzzed with an unusual voice message. It was from a white colleague, unaware his Apple Watch had recorded him, blurting out the Black trooper’s name followed by a searing racial slur.
“F----- n----, what did you expect?”
That unguarded moment, sent in a pocket-dial of sorts, touched off an internal investigation at Louisiana’s premier law-enforcement agency that remained under wraps for three years before a local television station reported last month that the white trooper had not even been reprimanded for the racist recording.
“I believe this to be an isolated incident and I have great confidence in the men and women who serve in the Louisiana State Police,” the agency’s outgoing head, Col. Kevin Reeves, said in response to the controversy.
But an Associated Press review of hundreds of State Police records revealed at least a dozen more instances over a three-year period in which employees forwarded racist emails on their official accounts with subject lines like “PROUD TO BE WHITE,” or demeaned minority colleagues with names including “Hershey’s Kiss,” “Django” and “Egg Roll.”
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Read more: 'https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-louisiana-baton-rouge-racial-injustice-d7f77f196571892d71bd010ce4109677
