“I recognize the damage this has done,” mentioned Patrol Major Jim Lewis at a city corridor assembly in southern Dallas Wednesday evening.
DALLAS — Hours after blatant racism by a Dallas police officer surfaced, a Dallas police main apologized.
“It’s sickening and disgusting,” Major Jim Lewis advised a room of individuals on the Polk-Wisdom Branch Library throughout a beforehand scheduled “meet and greet” between group members and Dallas police officers who work underneath Lewis at South Central patrol.
The assembly, organized by Dallas metropolis council member Tennell Atkins, had been on the calendar for Aug. 31 for some time.
The Wednesday evening occasion turned out to be good timing.
On Tuesday evening, DPD mentioned administrative employees realized {that a} police officer posted on social media an image of a brand new problem coin designed to commemorate South Central Patrol’s 15 years in existence.
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The coin was being provided on the market.
It was filled with blatantly racist photographs, mentioned Terrance Hopkins, president of the Black Police Association of Greater Dallas.
The coin featured a Pillsbury Dough Boy holding money and a gun at an obvious drug home.
The character had gold tooth and was holding an assault rifle in a single hand and a stack of money within the different.
A Dallas police automotive and a purple automotive with giant rims have been seen, as was “Big ‘T’ Plaza,” a shopping mall in South Oak Cliff.
Hopkins mentioned the dough boy refers to a film the place the primary character is a drug supplier.
He mentioned the pictures make group member ask questions like, “Is this the way white officers view us in our community? Is this the only vision they have of Black people?”
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The police officer is on go away pending an investigation and Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia mentioned at a news convention with Hopkins that he wouldn’t tolerate racist conduct.
“This may have happened at the Dallas Police Department before I got here, but it’s the first time it’s happened since I’ve been here and I’m going to tell you I’m not having it,” Garcia mentioned. “It’s not going to happen on my watch.”
Lewis echoed the chief’s remarks on the city corridor assembly, which occurred hours after news of the coin’s design grew to become public.
“Let me apologize as the commander over the officers that work this area,” Lewis mentioned. “We failed in this instance.”
Lewis advised the group he knew injury had been finished.
But Atkins mentioned he trusted it might be repaired with the interior investigation now underway.
“Racism is not over with,” Atkins mentioned.
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Community members who attended the assembly questioned whether or not the officer who designed the coin acted alone.
“There are other people in this as well and we need to get to the bottom of that,” one girl advised Atkins and Lewis.
In 2019, earlier than Garcia took over at DPD, racist texts between Dallas officers surfaced in the course of the homicide trial of former officer Amber Guyger who was discovered responsible within the demise of Botham Jean.
That similar 12 months, a nationwide investigation revealed racially insensitive social media posts from officers throughout the nation – together with members of DPD – that led to disciplinary motion for some.
Rev. Michael Waters, lead pastor of Dallas’s Abundant Life African Methodist Episcopal Church and a longtime group chief, sees a disturbing sample.
“It’s a sickening depiction of Black life and it’s terrifying for me and terrifying for the in the south central area of Dallas,” he mentioned of the coin.
“It comes from a very horrid history in our nation of Black people caricature that allows for the dehumanization of Black people.”
He referred to as for DPD to do “deep internal reflection” about what must be finished to shift tradition.
“This has an impact on the psyche of police officers and how they encounter the residents they’ve sworn an oath to serve,” he mentioned.
story by The Texas Tribune Source link