Revealed: Miami Police Officers Exchange Many Racist, Homophobic And Pornographic Emails

The Miami State Attorney’s Office has said that more than a dozen Miami Beach police officers are under investigation for exchanging hundreds of racist, homophobic and pornographic emails.

“Minorities and women were being demeaned in these emails that were sent between the officers, nude photographs were passed around and emails portraying offensive sexual acts were disseminated,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle revealed.

In a joint news conference with Beach Police Chief Daniel Oates and Mayor Philip Levine, it was revealed that the majority of the material was sent between 2010 and 2012; however, the police department did not discover the emails until July 2014, after an internal investigation was carried out.

More than one million emails were examined and about 230 were found to be offensive. Hundreds of pornographic images have been given to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to ensure that none of the images were of minors.

Apart from the pornographic images, some of the images also included jokes about President Barack Obama and golfer Tiger Woods. One image depicted a “Black Monopoly” board game where every square said “go to jail.”

“The Fraternal Order of Police is a diverse organization who does not tolerate racism or sexism in any way but we continue to support our members’ right to due process,” Miami Beach FOP President Bobby Jenkins said in a statement.

One of the major senders of the emails, a major who left the department in July, sent an autopsy photo of Raymond Herisse—a man who was killed in a police shooting in 2011 —to someone outside the police department. According to reports, this major and another captain, who was demoted and later sacked for misconduct, sent the majority of the disturbing emails. It is unclear whether the police department will still press charges against them.

Prosecutors said they are reviewing the cases of 16 officers who sent or received the emails. The officers are involved in 540 cases, with about 30 percent of them involving black defendants. However, some of the cases remain open and most are for misdemeanors.

Attorney Rundle said they are investigating whether emailing the autopsy photo violated state statutes. In addition, Rundle also wants to encourage the public to report any incidents of police misconduct to the appropriate office.

“We are turning the organization around, we want to create an environment, we want to send a signal to our employees that this is an organization where you can be proud to stand forward and say ‘I’ve seen this kind of misconduct by an employee and it’s safe and proper and appropriate for me to report it and have something done about it,” she said.

Mayor Levine also added that measures have already been put in place to deal with the officers involved in the case. He was quoted as saying, “This is a very sad day for Miami Beach. I can assure the public that we’ve made all the necessary steps, and will continue to do so, because situations like this we will never sweep under the rug.”

NBC Miami reports that this disturbing news comes after four Fort Lauderdale police officers lost their jobs over a racist video and racist text messages early this year. Dozens of cases linked to those officers have been dropped.

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