Results tagged “justinbarrett”

Justin Barrett, the Boston cop who called Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. a “banana-eating jungle monkey" in an e-mail is suing the city of Boston for violating his civil rights and harming his reputation. Really. He is. Barrett is mad that Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Police Commissioner Edward Davis both publically stated he should be fired. Davis did state that Barrett's due process rights would be fully administered during the termination process.

Do not expend any energy wondering when Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis and soon-to-be ex-cop Justin Barrett will be meeting for their own beer summit. Trust Bostonist on this because they aren't meeting to reconcile any time soon after Barrett described Henry Louis Gates and Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham as a "jungle monkey" in an e-mail he actually sent to Abraham after her column about Gates and his recent arrest. Commissioner Davis quickly acted by suspending Barrett and initiating the termination process. Davis asserted Barrett's due process rights in a public statement on Thursday.

The Boston Herald reports that Boston cop Justin Barrett got himself a dose of administrative leave after admitting to writing an email in which he called Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. a "jungle monkey." Barrett, who had been assigned to District B-3 (Dorchester and Mattapan), presumably knows that black people are human beings, but he may have been concerned that Boston's nationwide reputation as America's most racist city had been jeopardized by the Cambridge police when they arrested Gates.