When the U.S. Department of Justice released its report on bias and racial profiling in the Ferguson, Missouri police department in early March, it mentioned racist emails that the Department deemed "derogatory" and "dehumanizing." The emails have now been released — and they're every bit as bad as imagined.
Buzzfeed obtained the emails through an open records request and published them on Friday. They include jokes about Muslims, Black women, Black men, and welfare and child-support recipients. They also share photos, including one — of former President Ronald Reagan feeding a chimp with a bottle — that is captioned, "Rare photo of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in early 1962."
Image via Buzzfeed
An email from 2011 included a joke that made light of devastating floods that killed hundreds in Pakistan. "The Red Cross just knocked on my door and asked if we could contribute towards floods in Pakistan. I said we’d love to, but our garden hose only reaches to the driveway," it read.
Three police department employees — two officers and an assistant clerk at the Ferguson municipal court — were fired after the Justice Department released its findings.
Back in 2008, one of the officers sent an email about the presidential election. He said there was nothing to fear about the nation's first African American president, “because what black man holds a steady job for four years?"
Ferguson became the center of a nationwide movement protesting racial profiling and police violence against African Americans after white officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Black teen Michael Brown on August 18. The Justice Department launched an investigation into Brown's death and into police practices in Ferguson and St. Louis County after widespread protests.
The report found widespread bias in the police department's operations and laid out a staggering list of horrifying incidences of blatant racial profiling, verbal abuse, and using bogus traffic stops to bring in money for the town.
Ferguson's city manager was forced to step down in the wake of the report.