He Thought We Was Finna Laugh: Ohio Police Chief Resigns After Leaving KKK Sign on Black Officer's Desk as a 'Joke'

The mayor of Sheffield Lake, Ohio didn't find any of this very funny.

Can someone explain to Anthony Campo what a joke is? Seriously, send him the dictionary definition of the word โ€œjoke,โ€ because he clearly doesnโ€™t know it.

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The Morning Journal of Lisbon, Ohio reports that Campoโ€“the former police chief of Sheffield Lake, Ohioโ€“resigned June 29 after he left a note with the words โ€œKu Klux Klanโ€ written on it on top of a Black officerโ€™s raincoat. The incident was captured by surveillance footage obtained by the newspaper.

From the Morning Journal:

Sheffield Lake Mayor Dennis Bring voiced his displeasure with Campo in a phone interview July 1 with The Morning Journal.

Bring said he became aware of the incident at 10 a.m., June 30, when law director David Graves stepped into his office holding a printed complaint from the police union that was โ€œreal bad.โ€

โ€œI just looked at it and said, whatโ€™s this all about?โ€ the mayor said. โ€œAnd he goes, you arenโ€™t even going to believe this.โ€

Bring told the Morning Journal that when he called Campo into his office to discuss his actions, he insisted that he was only joking when he left the note. Instead of laughing, the mayor hit him with administrative leave papers.

Handing him the administrative leave papers, Bring said he gave Campo 10 minutes to leave the premises and that he was โ€œdumbfoundedโ€ by what he had heard.

โ€œHe says โ€˜this is what I get up to 30 years,โ€™โ€ the mayor said. โ€œI said what youโ€™re going to get is 10 minutes to get out of your office.

โ€œI said I want your car keys, badge, the keys for the office, and I need you to get a ride home and remove yourself.โ€

Campo spoke to the newspaper about the incident and said that heโ€™s not a racist and that heโ€™s โ€œsorry for anyone he offended.โ€ He further explained that he and the officer โ€œhad a joking back and forth banterโ€ since the day he hired him.

According to Bring, the officer was upset by Campoโ€™s โ€œjokeโ€ and was so surprised by it that he chucked as a โ€œgut reaction.โ€

More from the Morning Journal:

โ€œI just hope everybody understands that we acted fast,โ€ Bring said. โ€œI want everyone to understand that this is not our city.

โ€œThese are the actions of one individual.โ€

Even if this were just simply an extremely poor attempt at humor, Iโ€™m very confused as to how the note Campo left even constituted as a joke? Like, am I missing something here? Did the officer randomly drop off a note with something that white people find heinously offensive on the chiefโ€™s desk?

In the end, it doesnโ€™t really matter. Youโ€™d think that the leader of a police department would know better than to do something like this (on camera, nonetheless), but folks like this are getting a little too comfortable out here. Thatโ€™s why accountability is necessary time and time again.

In a follow-up story, the Morning Journal reported that the Cleveland Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations wants city administration to require police retraining after Campoโ€™s โ€œdespicable act of overt racism.โ€ย The organization has also taken issue with the fact that Campo was allowed to โ€œretireโ€ instead of being outright fired for his actions.

Straight From The Root

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