As Charlotte Confronts Racist Texts, Data Reveals Disparities in Police Stops – The Assembly NC

As Charlotte Confronts Racist Texts, Data Reveals Disparities in Police Stops  The Assembly NC

Police say a yearslong racist text thread among seven officers was an isolated issue. Many in the city are unconvinced. Less than a year after Estella Patterson held her first press conference as chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, she stood grim-faced in front of a bank of cameras. Patterson was there to confirm what a local television station had revealed: Seven officers had been trading racist, sexist, and religiously biased texts in a yearslong group thread. CMPD has not released the texts. But they contained racial slurs “related to use of force and discharging firearms at black residents,” WBTV reported. In one message obtained by another TV station, WCNC, an officer joked that “our texts sound like a clan rally,” viewed as a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

“The allegations against them are serious, they’re deeply troubling and frankly I’m disappointed we’re even having to talk about this today,” Patterson, a Black woman, told the public on October 15. Scoops and insights on major decisions and key leaders at N.C.’s colleges and universities, rounded up by our veteran reporters every Thursday. Try it FREE for 6 weeks! The chief insisted that a department audit of the officers’ work found no evidence that the unacceptable exchanges resulted in unfair treatment of residents. But in a city with a long