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Boston Policeman Suspended For Using Slur To Describe Harvard’s Gates

Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief in Politics, Society.
Jul 29th, 2009 | Comments

It may well have been a “teachable moment,” but perhaps some folks learned the wrong things:

A Boston police officer has been suspended and could be fired for a mass e-mail in which he used a racial slur to describe black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Commissioner Edward Davis put 36-year-old Justin Barrett on administrative leave pending a termination hearing after learning of the slur.

A person with knowledge of the case who was not authorized to speak publicly about the details told the Boston Herald that Barrett, a member of the National Guard, sent the e-mail to fellow Guardsmen and to The Boston Globe.

Barrett called Gates a “jungle monkey” in the e-mail, according to a copy posted online at MyFOXBoston.com. Officials told the Herald that Barrett admitted writing the e-mail.

Here’s the email.

Highly emotional controversies — particularly those involving allegations of bigotry coupled with counter allegations that the allegations are false, all fanned on by partisan and media interests — have a way of snowballing until they veer out of control. This email isn’t a positive sign. Changing hardened attitudes on a hot button issue will require more than lifting a few cold ones at the White House

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dmf

the cop should be fired for being an idiot. seriously. how did this seem like a good idea?

qwert321

And the liberals will use this incident to bolster their assumption that most cops are racists. While the moderates and the right will just write this off as one bad apple further dividing the liberals from the rest of the country on the race issue.

adexterc

I will not assume that all cops are racists. But I will ask, did he really ever teach English? Now there is a really scarey thought.

Paul in London

the man's an illiterate.

adelinesdad

I couldn't finish reading the email, as my palm was suddenly applied to my face after the first few lines.

I think we've established that the cop (the one who wrote the email, not the one who made the arrest) is racist. The next question: stupid or drunk?

StockBoySF

I'd be inclined to let the e-mail go as someone venting. However is a police officer and we hope our police officers, who are sworn to protect us, would keep their cool under pressure.

He also seems to take the Gate's/Crowley affair too personally. It seems that he treats everyone as a suspect. He did say that Gates would always remain a suspect... Barrett doesn't seem to understand that it's his job to respond to calls for help and sort the good guys from the bad guys.

Maybe he's stressed. Maybe he needs time off. Maybe he needs counseling (his line of work is difficult). But at the moment with his attitude he does not belong on the streets, "protecting" people and responding to calls for help. His judgement is very suspect and that, couple with a gun and authority, spells trouble.

StockBoySF

Also, as another observation of his e-mail, aside from the Gates/Crowley incident....

I understand it was a mass e-mail but it appears to have been written to the author of a Boston Globe article. If it was, and if the article was written by a woman, I'd say he's sexist, too. In this e-mail it appears that he's calling the reporter a "hot little bird" and that the reporter should be serving him coffee and doughnuts Sunday morning.

Father_Time

Well, being a Caucasus Mountains Pine Forest Monkey myself, I would have to distance myself from this particular Boston cop’s unfortunate choice of words. Obviously there is just not enough communal flea picking on the Boston police force. Sad, because Jungle Monkey fleas are absolutely excellent.

AustinRoth

Now THAT is a truly racist person, despite trying to weasel out of his own words.

jwest

If this guy is a cop, he needs to be fired.

For the benefit of our liberal friends, this is what a racist sounds like. Not like Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, but like this email.

If you haven’t learned what a racist sounds like by now, just replay some of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons from Barack’s old church. Those are as racist as they come.

kathykattenburg

And the liberals will use this incident to bolster their assumption that most cops are racists. While the moderates and the right will just write this off as one bad apple further dividing the liberals from the rest of the country on the race issue.

And neither of those two conclusions will be the correct one.

slysleuth

I read Barretts email to my husband (a retired policeman), and we both agree that this email is full of hatred and actually sounds like the poor man is actually losing it over this thing. He needs a little time off to clear his head. Maybe not fired, but to get his head on straight. He actually sounds a little dangerous. I am sorry, but read between the lines and you can see a man with problems.

TheLogistician

Had we, as a society, a bit thicker skins, we would broadcast these lunacies far and wide, with an appropriate apology to the more sensitive among us, demonstrate a little Common Sense for our fellow man, and let the fringe element drown in the laughter and public ridicule generated by their own thinking or lack thereof. Along with the right to free speech comes the right to make a public fool of oneself; and like the naked, fools have little or no influence on society. We should "Never Underestimate the Power of Laughter."

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