Racist e-mail sparks questions on free speech, image of the police

08/02/2009
Racist e-mail sparks questions on free speech, image of the police
By Maria Cramer Boston Globe


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BOSTON — Until this week, Officer Justin L. Barrett was a young Boston patrolman with no record of misconduct, who had served his country in Iraq and once tackled an armed man inside the Mattapan police station where he worked. Now, Mayor Thomas M. Menino has called him a cancer and said the 36-year-old should be fired for writing an e-mail comparing a black professor to a “jungle monkey.’’ To many of the city’s black leaders, he is a painful reminder of racial tensions that still exist in the city and within the Police Department. To high-ranking police officials, he is another obstacle in their effort to gain and keep the trust of those in minority neighborhoods, where most of the worst crimes occur. “This kind of attitude will tar all of our efforts, set us back 30 years,’’ said the Rev. Jeffrey Brown, head of the Boston TenPoint Coalition, which works with police to stop gang violence.

Yesterday, Boston police held a press conference at headquarters, inviting dozens of black community leaders and members of the police command staff to stand with Commissioner Edward F. Davis as he denounced Barrett’s comments, announced he had moved to fire the officer of two years, and promised a sweeping investigation that would try to uncover whether other officers responded to the e-mail and agreed. It was a dramatic response to the comments of one patrolman, but to the officers and community leaders who read his e-mail, it was vital to make such a stand. “This type of venomous rhetoric is severely damaging,’’ Davis said. “These racist opinions and feelings have no place in this department or in our society and will not be tolerated.’’

Civil liberties lawyers said this could be a tricky case for police. As a police officer, Barrett cannot speak as freely as the average citizen, but he may have protection from termination under the First Amendment right to free speech. Barrett was apparently not on duty when he sent the e-mail from a personal address. “You don’t surrender your First Amendment rights when you’re out of uniform, and that’s the key,’’ said Harvey Silverglate, a criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer. “I think it’s a close case. My guess is the Police Department would be able to proceed against him on the basis that it showed a lack of qualification to be a police officer, and he could be fired. Sometimes, there are really two sides to an issue.’’

Barrett, appearing last night on CNN’s “Larry King Live,’’ was contrite, offering his “sincerest apology . . . over the controversial e-mail I authored. . . . I failed to think through the perception others may have based upon what I wrote.’’ He denied being a racist and said he “did not intend any racial bigotry, harm, or prejudice in my words.’’ When King asked him where the explosive language came from, he said he did not know and insisted he treats everyone with dignity.
Barrett’s lawyer, Peter Marano, who also appeared on the telecast, called the Police Department’s move out of proportion. In an earlier interview, he said, “We have police officers who do heroin, cocaine and keep their jobs; beat their wives, keep their jobs. It strikes me as there is a whole set of different standards. The issue is that it’s a private e-mail from a private computer.’’

Last week, Barrett, the married father of a toddler, sent the e-mail to Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham in response to her July 21 piece about the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Barrett criticized the column, which was sympathetic to Gates and said that Gates had behaved like a “banana-eating jungle monkey’’ when Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley responded to his home for a report of a break-in. Gates was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, a charge that was quickly dropped. Barrett copied the e-mail to several friends and colleagues, including members of the National Guard, where he is a captain. On July 23, the National Guard learned of the e-mail and suspended Barrett pending an investigation to see whether he should be disciplined. He does not face military criminal charges, but the e-mail “violated Army values and policies,’’ said Major James Sahady, a spokesman for the National Guard.

On Monday, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case, furious Boston patrol officers who learned of the e-mail reported it to a sergeant detective in Mattapan, who then reported the e-mail to Captain James Claiborne, Barrett’s supervisor. Davis learned of the missive on Tuesday and hours later stripped Barrett of his gun and badge. A hearing will be scheduled in the next week to 10 days to decide whether to terminate Barrett, Davis said. Barrett has the right to appeal any punishment to the state Civil Service Commission. Davis tried to distance the department from the e-mail, saying it reflected the “racist opinions and feelings’’ of one individual. “We will not allow the unacceptable actions of one member to define who we are as a police organization,’’ he said. But Larry Ellison, a Boston detective and the president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, said the incident reflects a subtly racist culture that permeates the department. He pointed to several incidents in the last year, including a white officer who urinated in the water bottle of a black female officer and another who posted an article, “Slavery: Best Thing that Ever Happened to Blacks.’’

Yesterday, Ellison and other officials learned that someone had scrawled graffiti in the bathroom of a Charlestown police station. The toilet has two buttons, one for flushing liquids and another for flushing solid waste. Next to the buttons, someone had written Deval Patrick and Barack Obama. “This is not an isolated incident,’’ Ellison said of the e-mail.