Emails published by the Washington Post on Friday show the racist jokes and email chains that Ferguson, Missouri police and city officers exchanged over several years, including comparing President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee.
The emails were described by the Justice Department in its report detailing the widespread racism in the Ferguson police department. But the actual contents of the emails were not public until the Washington Post got them through a public records request.
The three officials connected to the emails were Ferguson police Capt. Rick Henke, Sgt. William Mudd, and court clerk Mary Ann Twitty. They sent racist material back and forth between 2008 and 2011.
One email contained a short story called, “Leroy’s last child support payment,” while another written by Mudd described signing dogs up for welfare. Yet another derided President Obama by saying “we shouldn’t worry about him being president for very long because what black man holds a steady job for four years.”
But perhaps the most baldly racist email was a forwarded chain featuring a black and white photo of Ronald Reagan feeding a baby chimpanzee, sent by Twitty.
“Rare photo of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in early 1962,” the caption read.
See the rest of the emails at the Washington Post website.
