Can someone explain to Anthony Campo what a joke is? Seriously, send him the dictionary definition of the word โjoke,โ because he clearly doesnโt know it.
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The Morning Journal of Lisbon, Ohio reports that Campoโthe former police chief of Sheffield Lake, Ohioโresigned June 29 after he left a note with the words โKu Klux Klanโ written on it on top of a Black officerโs 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 โreal bad.โ
โI just looked at it and said, whatโs this all about?โ the mayor said. โAnd he goes, you arenโt 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 โdumbfoundedโ by what he had heard.
โHe says โthis is what I get up to 30 years,โโ the mayor said. โI said what youโre going to get is 10 minutes to get out of your office.
โI 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 heโs not a racist and that heโs โsorry for anyone he offended.โ He further explained that he and the officer โhad a joking back and forth banterโ since the day he hired him.
According to Bring, the officer was upset by Campoโs โjokeโ and was so surprised by it that he chucked as a โgut reaction.โ
More from the Morning Journal:
โI just hope everybody understands that we acted fast,โ Bring said. โI want everyone to understand that this is not our city.
โThese are the actions of one individual.โ
Even if this were just simply an extremely poor attempt at humor, Iโm 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 chiefโs desk?
In the end, it doesnโt really matter. Youโd 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. Thatโs 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 Campoโs โdespicable act of overt racism.โย The organization has also taken issue with the fact that Campo was allowed to โretireโ instead of being outright fired for his actions.
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