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N-word, other racist language found in Baton Rouge Police Dept. emails

LOUISIANA WEEKLY — Just three months after a judge lifted a 39-year-old consent decree requiring the Baton Rouge Police Department to seek more diversity in its ranks, social justice proponents discovered emails to and from BRPD officers containing racist, vulgar language. The uncovered communications, which were sent in 2014 and 2015, placed the city of Baton Rouge and the BRPD on their heels at a time when they hoped to move on from a devastating history of racial and ethnic prejudice that culminated in 2016 with the shooting death of Alton Sterling at the hands of police officers.

Published

6 years ago

September 20, 2019

Oakland Post

Photo by: Pixabay | pexels.com

By Ryan Whirty

Just three months after a judge lifted a 39-year-old consent decree requiring the Baton Rouge Police Department to seek more diversity in its ranks, social justice proponents discovered emails to and from BRPD officers containing racist, vulgar language.

The uncovered communications, which were sent in 2014 and 2015, placed the city of Baton Rouge and the BRPD on their heels at a time when they hoped to move on from a devastating history of racial and ethnic prejudice that culminated in 2016 with the shooting death of Alton Sterling at the hands of police officers.

On Sept. 10, a collaborative composed of a Harvard University faculty member and a private law firm released emails they uncovered after a 2018 public information request seeking all uses of the n-word within communications to and from BRPD accounts.

According to a press release issued last week by William Most, a New Orleans attorney representing two plaintiffs in current lawsuits against the police department, he received a response to his public-records request in March.

The filing of the request and subsequent investigation was a joint effort between Most and Thomas Frampton, a fellow at Harvard Law School, and the Systemic Justice Project at Harvard. According to the press release, the request for the communications in question was made during an investigation by Most and Harvard not related to any legal action.

Among the collected emails received by Most were messages involving the accounts of two BRPD officers that made frequent use of vulgarity and the n-word that revealed significant hostility toward Baton Rouge’s large Black community.

“I had one f***king module left and now I’ll probably have to start over. F***king n***er,” stated one email from one of the officers to U.S. Army personnel.

Another email, this one between a Baton Rouge officer and an officer from another law enforcement agency featured a multi-sentence, grammatically-challenged, racist screed riddled with spelling errors against members of the African-American community.

“Don’t need to be sorry for nothing!!!” it stated. “My Blood is Boiling but I will kill them with kindness no n***er will ever bring me down .. Lol sorry it’s just they have Nothing better to do!! And he is like ovious married freaking titty baby motor cycle c*** s***er”. [All comments within the emails have been written verbatim, except for the censoring of the n-word and obscenity.]

Another message within the same email chain stated, “They wonder why their called N***ers!! I am f****ing PISSED!!!.”
Most told The Louisiana Weekly that since he and Frampton released the redacted emails to the public, the reaction from the community has been angry resignation at what many in the city’s Black population believe has come to be the status quo in Baton Rouge.

“People seem to be mostly reacting with anger – but not surprise – at the behavior of these officers,” he said.

Frampton said in the press release that such language and missives could directly affect the way BRPD officers investigate cases and charge suspects, especially people within minority communities. Frampton said the emails reveal a possible lack of objectivity and fairness among police officers.

“The East Baton Rouge District Attorney should have a plan in place to notify criminal defendants and their attorneys,” he said. “These sorts of emails call into question the credibility of the cases these officers have worked on.”

However, Sgt. L’Jean McKneely, a spokesman for the BRPD, noted that while the department has more than 600 officers on its roster, only two of them were found to use such language.

McKneely also said city officials on their own conduct periodic reviews of communications to and from all BRPD officers so the city can root out any such attitudes as soon as possible. He added that the discovery of the emails in question will be used by the BRPD and city as an impetus to further address racial animosity and bias among police officers and to continue to strengthen the relationship between officers and the community.

“It has caused awareness and discussion of these types of incidents,” McKneely said. “It’s an awakening that has brought these incidents to the forefront of our minds, and it makes us more proactive in our efforts to educate, No. 1, and encouraging our officers and let them know that this type of language is not acceptable in any way, shape or form.”

McKneely said since the uncovering of the emails in question, the officers involved have been questioned by BRPD Chief Murphy Paul and undergone an administrative review. McKneely added that Murphy ordered the two officers – whose names have not been released – to training programs that teach understanding and stress that such language and hostile attitudes are not acceptable.

Paul did not respond to a request for comment from The Louisiana Weekly. The BRPD union also didn’t answer an inquiry from the paper.

However, Most said that when he presented the involved emails to Paul, the chief’s response was largely positive and stressed the education and training of BRPD officers as a means to continue mending the fractured relationship the department has with the Baton Rouge community.

But most added that much more needs to be done.

“I find the seriousness of Chief Paul’s response encouraging,” he said. “But I also hope that this is the beginning, not the end, of a conversation about what we expect from the officers who serve our communities.”

Such sentiments have perhaps been heightened recently with the lifting of a four-decade consent decree requiring the city to make its police and fire departments more diverse and representative of the city’s general population.

The decree was lifted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, asserting that the city had met the directives imposed by the decree that was imposed in 1980 and pushed Baton Rouge – as well as dozens of other municipalities across Louisiana – to become compliant with federal law concerning hiring and promotion of members of the departments.

While many of the other municipalities affected by the decree have steadily had the order lifted by courts over the last two decades, Baton Rouge lagged behind the progress shown by other towns and cities. The decree prohibited the cities from using discrimination along racial and gender lines when recruiting and hiring new police officers and firefighters. The order required that municipalities create and show paperwork during such hiring efforts as proof that diversification progress was being made.

The consent decree included guidelines for making the departments more representative of the community at large, calling for the hiring of equal numbers of white and Black officers and firefighters, as well as the addition of more women to the forces. The cities were also told to end the use of gender-specific titles like “policeman” and “fireman” and instead employ more gender-neutral terms.

McKneely said the BRPD has steadily worked toward the goals outlined in the decree, and multiple chiefs and administrations in the ensuing years have strived to meet the directives. McKneely said that process has been continued by Paul, who began his tenure as chief in January 2018, less than two years after Baton Rouge resident Sterling, a 37-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed at close range by BRPD officers in July 2016.

Sterling’s death led to several high-profile, heated demonstrations and protests by members of the public and clashes between protesters and police officers that exacerbated an already tense, distrustful chasm between the public and BRPD that had been splitting Baton Rouge since the days of Jim Crow segregation.

Sterling’s death helped fuel a nationwide movement, including the high-profile Black Lives Matter effort, toward awareness and rejection of bigotry, callousness and anger displayed by law enforcement agencies across the country.

McKneely acknowledged that more progress needs to be made by the BRPD to rectify past sins and eliminate distrust and antagonistic relations between the department and the public. However, he added that much progress has nonetheless been made over the past four decades.

“We feel this is a constant work in progress,” he said. “We are being progressive with our actions. We are taking steps to make our relationship better, to share ideas and communicate better. We want to raise people’s consciousness of what’s going on with the department and with the public, so we can together have a better relationship.

“Every police agency faces these issues [such as the racist emails],” he added, “but we are meeting it head on and not hiding from it.”

Most, the attorney involved in civil rights litigation, expressed cautious optimism about what might result from the emails controversy.

“In recent years, the City of Baton Rouge has not treated all its community members with the full constitutional protections they are entitled to,” Most said. “Hopefully this story, and others, sparks a conversation about how the City and police can do better in the future.”

This article originally published in the September 16, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

This article originally appeared in The Louisiana Weekly.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

4 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

7 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

7 days ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,