Breaking: Boston cop calls Henry Gates "jungle monkey" in email, put on leave

[LittleBlue]

BOSTON (BNO NEWS) -- Boston police officer Justin Barrett, 36-years-old, has been put on administrative leave after he used offensive language when referring to Harvard professor Henry Gates in an e-mail, who has been at the center of a controversial arrest last week.

According to BNO News sources with direct knowledge to the contents of the e-mail, Barrett called Gates a "jungle monkey."

A spokeswoman for the Boston police department confirmed to BNO News that Barrett has been put on administrative leave. Officials found out about the e-mail on Tuesday and immediately strapped Barrett of his badge and gun. An investigation has been launched.

This breaking news story will be updated.

http://news.bnonews.com/iwjy

Well, look at the racist apologists now.

[joeybee12]

1. Giy should be booted out...and Boston is a different city than Cambridge..n/t.

[valerief]

2. 36 and in Boston? I'd understand if he were 86, but 36? Boston? Wow.

Most Bostonians are just not like that.

[cali]

5. Racism has deep and ugly roots in Boston. n/t

[jonnyblitz]

8. you must not be familiar with Boston. nt

[valerief]

9. Guess not. Just grew up there. nt

[ruggerson]

11. you don't remember busing, eh?

[valerief]

15. Yes. I saw the TPF on rooftops. I was watching protests and had to run

into a stranger's house to escape the billyclubbing from the cops. I wasn't protesting. I was a spectator.

I remember. That's why I said I could understand if he were 86, not 36. Have you been to South Boston recently? It's changed in 30 years.

[ruggerson]

18. true, but those kind of deep rooted attitudes change slowly

and they're quietly handed down generation to generation.

I'm sure prejudice has lessened over the years, but as this cop demonstrates, it's still alive and kicking.

[valerief]

19. And unusual. That's what surprises me. It's unusual for a 36 yr old in Boston.

And it's been thirty years. From bussing to a black president. Things don't change that slowly. Well, except for the wealthy, and cops don't come from money.

[Drunken Irishman]

27. It's Boston. The racist capital of the north.

It might be a strongly Democratic city, but it's still the racist capital of the north.

[Jennicut]

31. Unfortunately that is true...I live in northern CT and have been there many times

The attitudes among younger people there are somewhat better but like others said, it gets passed down. Racism exits in good old blue CT too.

[Zynx]

43. You've apparently never talked to white people from the Milwaukee area.

Damn.

[Zomby Woof]

45. Boston is more racist than Montgomery, Alabama

Hell, even the Southern Poverty Law Center cited a stat that there are more Klansmen per capita in Boston, than in Atlanta or Montgomery.

Of course, yankees from Boston are always the first to point their fingers at the south for its racism while ignoring their own. Their shit doesn't stink in Boston, I guess!

[CatWoman]

3. wonder if the black cops will run to THIS guy's aid as well?

[valerief]

4. I'm looking forward to a Steeleism. nt

[hlthe2b]

6. Ahh, yes... no racial undertones to this story...

Geebus... they are coming out of the wood work now.

[Renaissance Man]

7. Horrible..

... and queue the DU cop apologists in 5, 4, 3, 2, ...

[ThomCat]

22. Yup. The poor, misunderstood cops we should all absolutely respect

because they all put their lives on the line every single day for every one of us, and that gives them the right to be as abusive as they want, don't you know. x(

[burning rain]

47. You can't just say "cops." That's bad English.

Correct usage is "hero cops." You can't say "cop" or "cops" without putting "hero" in front of it. Don't you read the New York Post?

[masuki bance]

10. He should be fired. nt

[beachmom]

That's bad.

[SuperTrouper]

12. Well, a termination hearing has been scheduled. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Professor Gates should be ashamed of himself for causing this.

[valerief]

23. Yes, he should have been born white.

:sarcasm:

[Cha]

34. I think I read some

comments under this article(on the Boston Globe blog) from LBN that implied exactly that.

kpete (1000+ posts) Wed Jul-29-09 08:34 PM
Original message

Source: Boston Globe

"Officer suspended for Gates slur in e-mail"
July 29, 2009 07:35 PM

By Matt Collette, Globe Correspondent

An officer in the Boston Police Department was suspended yesterday for allegedly writing a racially charged e-mail about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to colleagues at the National Guard, a law enforcement official said. Mayor Thomas M. Menino compared the officer to a cancer and said he is "gone, g-o-n-e'' from the force.

The law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Officer Justin Barrett referred to the black scholar as a " jungle monkey" in the letter, written in reaction to media coverage of Gates's arrest July 16.

Barrett, a 36-year-old who has been on the job for two years, was stripped of his gun and badge yesterday and faces a termination hearing in the next week, said police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. He has no previous disciplinary record, she said.

"Yesterday afternoon, Commissioner Davis was made aware that Officer Barrett was the author of correspondence which included racially charged language," she said. "At that time, Commissioner Davis immediately stripped Officer Barrett of his gun and badge, and at this time we will be moving forward with the hearing process."

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3992401

[JayMusgrove]

49. If Gates hadn't been such an uppity guy.....right!!!!!!!

:sarcasm:

[jmm]

55. How dare he force an officer to call him a banana eating jungle monkey!

Barrett even said some of his best friends are black so he can't be racist and Gates must be responsible.

[Mz Pip]

14. Talk about pouring gasoline

on a fire. Sheesh. What a creep. This definitely falls into the "YOU'RE NOT HELPING!!!" category.

He deserves to lose his badge.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. Stupid!

[burning rain]

17. He needs to be canned.

Don't see how there could be any question about that.

[polmaven]

44. Mayor Menino agrees with you.

He said "He has no place in this department, and we have to take his badge away."

I could not agree more.

[Arkana]

20. Classy.

[TheCowsCameHome]

21. The RW talking heads in Boston will rush to his aid. Graham, Severin, et al

Just as surely as the sun rises in the east.

[theothersnippywshrub]

24. How very republican. n/t

[CakeGrrl]

25. I have to say, I enjoy the heightened exposure this is getting

thanks to the President's remarks.

Many of us KNOW this attitude is out there, and I'm glad some of this is taking place while the media was chasing the shiny racism ball for a brief while to put lie to the notion that this country is post-racial.

[Cha]

35. Obama did accept his party's nomination

on the 45th Anniversary of Dr MLK's I Have A Dream speech.

And, by Pres Obama saying it how he said it is exactly what caused it to break wide open..as painful as that was in the interim.

[Gregorian]

26. We should pride ourselves in elevating the consciousness of our country.

It's easy. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It is not weak, but a strength. It brings us together. Let us have a nation we are proud of.

Don't fall victim to the lowest common denominator just because one does not have the skills and education to see the bigger context of reality.

We are all alone in the vastness of a space unimaginably large. Don't be lower than an insect. Be big.

What else is there to say? We don't need to condemn, we just need to work and grow.

[Captain Hilts]

28. He's so stupid, he doesn't get the slur correct. Idiot. nt

[hedgehog]

38. +1

This guy is clearly a poseur.

[Perky]

29. stupid idiot

[Window]

30. Racist asshole.

[whistler162]

32. Idiot cop will be fired but you can only be put on ignore

for your commentary!

[angee_is_mad]

33. Post racial

that's what I'm talking about:sarcasm:

Boston's Finest!!

[marshall]

36. I assume this was done on his work email account

The man was stupid to write such offensive stuff on a work email account.

People should have gmail or yahoo accounts for their personal email anyway.

[JayMusgrove]

50. He sent this to a Newspaper!!!!!!!!!

He's not just writing emails to his buddies.

[depakid]

37. It's just some people just never learn

Or, I don't know- maybe they do learn, from the wrong people:

"I am not a racist, but I am prejudice towards people who are stupid," reads the alleged diatribe -- containing frequent grammatical and spelling errors -- against Gates and local newspaper the Boston Globe.

"He has indeed transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-cop-suspended-over-racist-rant-20090730-e2cj.html

Dude, AM hate radio and Fox "news" hosts get away with projection and semi-literacy- and then play the martyr card. but you're a working stiff, not an elitist.

[JayMusgrove]

53. Goodness, this Boston cop story is in an Australian newspaper?

As if we aren't viewed already by our allies as a nation full of guns and nuts, and Bush voters.

This cop has contributed to bad PR for our nation worldwide.

[beltanefauve]

54. "I am not a racist, but..."

famous last words.

[sunnybrook]

39. You know what the problem is here?

Officer Barrett did not get the racial profiling sensitivity training from expert Sgt. Jim Crow (ley)! Then he would have at least not sent this to the Boston Globe, but kept it "internal."

[BlooInBloo]

42. Actually, we don't know that he didn't.

[cliffordu]

40. I hope he gets what's coming to him

Hard to be a cop with traumatic brain injury.

I love the uniform, hate that asshole. He doesn't deserve to ever have a badge again.

[graywarrior]

41. I'm keeping my trap shut (having grown up in the Boston area)

[burning rain]

46. Guy needs to go on Glenn Beck's show...

and bawl that he's not racist -- he just called Gates a "jungle monkey" to protest his racism. :eyes:

Seriously, Barrett needs to be CANNED.

[old mark]

48. The cop responded later that it was a "poor choice of words".

What this country needs - another uniformed thug with a gun and a double digit IQ.



mark

[JayMusgrove]

51. From the Boston Globe Metro desk editorial writer who got the email

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/an_email_among.html


"An e-mail, among many, answered with the delete key
Email|Link|Comments (78)July 30, 2009 12:12 PM
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Columnist

I barely remember Boston Police Officer Justin Barrett’s e-mail.

There were so many of them – hundreds, after I wrote a column last week calling the Cambridge police dunderheaded for arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr. They came mostly from people who disagreed – strongly – with me.

Many of them were civil and well-argued. Many were passionate and heartfelt.

But then there were the other e-mails – the ones calling me a moron and an idiot and all kinds of other names. They accused me of playing the race card even as they insulted African-Americans.

There were scores of them. They proved that, regardless of who is to blame in the Gates affair, there is still plenty of ugliness in the world, some of it baldly racist.

Barrett
Among these, Barrett’s didn’t even stand out, until yesterday, when news broke that his e-mail to me had gotten him suspended. He was apparently so proud of it that he circulated it among friends and colleagues.
I try to read and respond to every e-mail I get. The reasoned ones often help me see points of view I may not have fully considered. Some of the thoughtful e-mails about Gates, along with developments in the story that came after my column appeared, made me wish I’d cut Sergeant James Crowley more slack.

But when somebody begins with insults, racial epithets, or both, I hit the delete button.

This happens so often I barely register it any more."


More at the link.

[Leo The Cleo]

52. This Couldn't Possibly Be Racist . . .

He said he was sorry. What a prick. I guess Gates may not be a trouble maker anyway. Maybe those cop apologists don't know squat.