Dozens of police officers in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Antioch are under fire after excerpts from their personal group chat filled with racist and homophobic text messages have been made public. Citizens and the city’s mayor are outraged and question if the bigoted sentiments in the exchanges color how officers police the community.
The texts came to light on April 11 after The Bay Area News Group obtained a copy of an investigative report written by Contra Costa District Attorney Senior Inspector Larry Wallace about the group’s messages to each other.
The texting scandal is at the center of an FBI investigation and Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office investigation into Bay Area police departments that dates back to 2019, according to ABC 7 News.
The investigations identified 17 officers as participants in the chat, making up approximately a quarter of the Antioch Police Department, but the East Bay Times reports that 44 Antioch officers have gotten as least one message included in the investigation of the group.
By Wednesday, April 12, 17 of those officers had been placed on leave. Some have resigned, and others are working on the force but not in roles that are public-facing.
The texts excerpted in the reports from a second, 14-page report emerged Friday, April 14, reveal a pattern of officers using racial epithets to refer to African-Americans and expressing both a desire to use violence against them and satisfaction at doing so.
“I’ll bury that n—-r in my fields,” Antioch Sgt. Joshua Evans texted Officer Morteza Amiri in December 2020.
In February 2020 Amiri texted Officer Eric Rombough, “No they didn’t push it that far. Bunch of gorillas surrounding us and taunting a fight since we were hooking [epithet].”
The messges, which weren’t always limited to Antioch officers, sometimes show officers openly admitting to violating citizens’ constitutional rights.
“Since we don’t…
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