Racist Email Police Officer Suspensions

Dallas Morning News reporter Katie Fairbank reports in an August 6, 2009 news article that three Grand Prairie Police Department Officers were suspended for sending racist emails on city computers.  In an article posted at http://www.dallasnews.com , Fairbank writes that the three police officers were suspended 21 days each without pay for forwarding a racist email that appeared to be about President Barack Obama.  In addition, a dispatcher was suspended 28 days without pay.  As stated in the article, none of the four employees appealed the suspensions, and each expressed his or her regret and offered apologies to the Police Department and the community.  According to the article, the first email included an image of Air Force One with a tail number whose letters and digits resembled the N-word, and a second email included a racial cartoon.  Fairbank further reports that the only similar incident in the department was eight years ago, when an officer used a racial slur and that officer is no longer with the department.  Texas Open Records Act information obtained by the Dallas newspaper shows that the Police Department has 287 white officers and 40 black officers.