The commissioner for the Kentucky State police has resigned after it was revealed that a training program used by the force included quotes from Adolf Hitler and Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Honestly, I feel like that should just be the story.
Like, it’s fucking Hitler, y’all. Hitler.
CBS News reports that Commissioner Rodney Brewer’s resignation goes into effect on Wednesday, and Lt. Col. Phillip Burnett has been appointed by Gov. Andy Beshear (D) as acting commissioner.
“As of today, the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet continues to work diligently to swiftly and thoroughly conduct an internal review of all training materials and will provide information as it becomes available,” Morgan Hall, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, told CBS News in a statement.
Brewer was appointed to commissioner by Beshear in January, serving only 10 months in the position before resigning. He was a 33-year veteran of the force, holding several positions within the state police department during his time.
Beshear condemned the training material on Monday. “This is absolutely unacceptable,” Beshear in a statement to CBS News. “It is further unacceptable that I just learned about this through social media. We will collect all the facts and take immediate corrective action.” Hall has previously said that the training hadn’t been administered to cadets since 2013.
The training came to light due a report from the Manual Red Eye, a student newspaper at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Ky. The training material, titled “The Warrior Mindset,” featured such lovely quotes like “the very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”
That little ditty came from Mein Kampf, the manifesto of one Adolf Hitler.
You know Hitler, right? The guy who’s easily in everyone’s “Worst Person in History,” top five? He’s quoted at least three times in the training slideshow, and there is even a link to Hitler’s Goodreads page, a website that’s basically Yelp for books.
You know how I know cops are racist? There are cops in Kentucky who went through a training program that included multiple quotes from Hitler and not once did they go “You know, maybe this isn’t for me.”
If I open a book, and off jump it’s like “Yo, Hitler was really dropping jewels if you were paying attention,” I’m going to close that book.
It’s that easy, y’all. I swear.
DISCUSSION
To be fair, I wouldn’t have recognized these quotes as being from Mein Kampf. They are still chilling, just in content alone. How can you “protect and serve” with constant violence? That statement is so contradictory in and of itself in regards to policing. Also, how did it take THIS LONG for someone to uncover this? Apparently this has been there for 7 years!