Two police supervisors with the Ferguson Police Department resigned this week after they were linked to racist emails discovered during the Justice Department investigation.
Captain Rick Henke and Sergeant William Mudd resigned on Thursday, according to city officials. Mary Ann Twitty, clerk of the Municipal Court, was fired on Wednesday for her role in the email scandal, the San Antonio Express News reported.
The Justice Department report noted that no officials were disciplined for the racist emails, until now.
[quote text_size=”small” author=”– Justice Department report”]
Our investigation has not revealed any indication that any officer or court clerk engaged in these communications was ever disciplined. Nor did we see a single instance in which a police or court recipient of such an email asked that the sender refrain from sending such emails, or any indication that these emails were reported as inappropriate. Instead, these emails were usually forwarded along to others.
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City officials did not say whether any of the three employees wrote the emails or whether other employees wrote or forwarded the emails.
The Justice Department Civil Rights Division released a scathing report of the Ferguson Police Department and court system on Wednesday, describing both as a system making poor black citizens pay as many fees as possible for petty offenses, whether the offenses are real or imagined. It also called the system and some city employees racially discriminatory, and the police brutal.
A court clerk, not identified by name, was mentioned in the report as frequently dismissing tickets for friends, writing in emails, “Your ticket of $200 has magically disappeared” and “It’s gone baby!”
Federal investigators also reported racist jokes and comments found in emails exchanged among court supervisors and police, although the employees were not identified by name.
The racist emails included one sent in October 2011 with a photo of a bare-chested woman, apparently in Africa, with a caption reading “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.” An email sent in June 2011 described a man attempting to put his dogs on welfare because they were “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no … clue who their daddies are.”
Many critics have called for the Ferguson police department to be disbanded and for Police Chief Thomas Jackson to resign his position.
In an interview with CNN, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles noted that Jackson was not copied on any of the emails in question, adding that the city will do its due diligence to hold people accountable.
