National
These Are the Racially Charged E-mails That Got 3 Ferguson Police and Court Officials Fired
E-mail forwarded by Ferguson’s court clerk to two police supervisors in 2011.
Wesley Lowery and Kimberyly Kindy, THE WASHINGTON POST
FERGUSON, Mo. (The Washington Post)—City officials in Ferguson, Mo., on Thursday evening released the full, unredacted content of racially charged and religiously insensitive e-mails sent by the city’s former court clerk as well as two former supervisors in the police department.
The e-mails, released to The Washington Post in response to a public-records request, were sent and received by Mary Ann Twitty, who was Ferguson’s court clerk, as well as former Ferguson police captain Rick Henke and former police sergeant William Mudd. All three were removed from their jobs after the Department of Justice discovered the e-mails, which prompted an internal investigation by city officials. The unredacted versions show for the first time which employee sent which e-mails.
None of the three has spoken publicly since losing their jobs, and neither Twitty nor Henke could be reached for comment on Thursday. Mudd declined to comment through a family member.
These e-mails were among the evidence presented by the Justice Department in a report released this year that concluded that racism pervaded the Ferguson Police Department. The report cited an analysis of those ticketed and arrested as well as anecdotal evidence about when and why Ferguson police officers use force on residents.
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