Rookie Detroit cop posts about policing ‘zoo animals’ – and gets suspended on the spot
Detroit’s chief of police says a photo that a rookie cop posted of himself on Snapchat with a racially tinged caption was “absolutely unacceptable,” the Detroit News reports.
Chief James Craig told the newspaper he suspended Sean Bostwick “on the spot as soon as I saw that post.”
The post shows Bostwick, who is white, in his police uniform with the caption: “Another night to Rangel up these zoo animals.”
The word “wrangle” is misspelled.
It’s not known when Bostwick made the post, according to Fox2, but screengrabs spread over the weekend and the department confirmed the post and an investigation to Detroit media outlets.
John Bennett posted a screengrab of the post Sunday on his Facebook page that was shared more than 3,000 times. “This is a newly appointed Detroit Police Officer. The caption speaks for itself,” Bennett wrote.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Bennett is a former police officer who “co-chaired the department’s discrimination committee and released a report on racism in the department last year.”
The Free Press reported that Bostwick works in the city’s 12th precinct. Craig told the News that Bostwick had been out of the police academy for two months.
“This is highly disturbing,” Craig told the News. “I’ve been getting phone calls from black officers, white officers, male and female officers — and they’re all disgusted. This isn’t reflective of the officers who work in this department.”
People who saw the post that spread on social media were outraged and many called for Bostwick to be fired.
“Your top cop is black, you patrol a predominantly black neighborhood, in a city that is almost 85% black. Can’t have this on our force,” tweeted Branden Hunter.
“I want him fired,” Wilbur Medley, who retired last year after 18 years as a police officer, told WDIV in Detroit.
Bostwick patrols Medley’s neighborhood which Medley said makes him worried about his sons.
“We’re out here right now,” said Medley, who is black. “I don’t see any zoo animals. What are you talking about when you say ‘zoo animals?’
“If he’s looking at us like zoo animals, who’s to say he won’t do something bad?”
The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality also called for Bostwick to be fired immediately.
“His racist, offensive comments calling Detroit citizens ‘zoo animals’ is beyond the pale and hearkens to the darkest days of our nation’s history, when African Americans were widely viewed — and treated — this way,” the group’s director, Kenneth Reed, told the News.
“If you call someone an animal, you will treat them like one. That is unacceptable for one who is called to protect and serve.”
Craig is expected to give an update on the incident on Monday, MLive reported.
This story was originally published September 24, 2018 at 12:39 PM.