In March 2016, three Fort Lauderdale police officers were fired after an investigation revealed that they had exchanged text messages on their personal phones that included racial slurs and images. There was a fourth officer involved in the incident who resigned in January before the investigation had concluded.
Officers James Wells, Jason Holding, Christopher Sousa, and Alex Alvarrez exchanged these messages on their personal cell phones along with a video they made. The video contained images of President Barack Obama wearing a gold chain and gold tooth caps, someone wearing a Ku Klux Klansman’s hood, an African-American man being bitten by a police dog, a bloody scene and a wanted poster for “an escaped slave”.
Since being fired Officer Holding has been fighting to get his job back. During an arbitration hearing on Tuesday, Holding brought in a witness to testify that he was not racist. The witness just so happens to be his black girlfriend, Perpetua Michel. She told the arbitrator that she had known Holding for almost four years and their relationship became serious about a year ago after the allegations surfaced.
Michel doesn’t believe that her boyfriend meant to use the word in a hateful way. “There are people that make mistakes. There are people that say things that they didn’t mean, ” she said. “He’s a cop, he shouldn’t have said that word, correct.”
After claiming that he was now “numb” to the use of the N-word, because of its use by members of the black community along with black officers and white officers, Holding offered a tearful apology as his parents cried in the hearing. “I am not a racist, I have never been a fascist, I’ll never be a racist. That is not who I am.”
The President of the Broward, Florida NAACP spoke out about the incident saying, “This is pure hatred and racism. It is obviously morally repugnant, and we cannot have this in our community,” said Marsha Ellison.
Surprisingly, despite being fired, none of the officers have had their licenses to be cops revoked. Therefore no matter how the appeals process turns out, these officers can go and work for another agency as police officers.
What do you think? Does having a black girlfriend and the use of the N-word by others around him, make it okay for Holding to use? Does it make him less of a racist? Let us know in the comments below.
