As every Fox News viewer knows, the US is not a racist country. The Kansas City, Missouri Police Department didn’t get the memo.
Today thisis a front page story in the Kansas City Star with the title: Kansas City police made racist challenge coin with image of pimp: ‘It was repugnant’
Here is the description of the coin:
On one side, the coin was to feature a cartoon image of a 1970s pimp with a biracial complexion, dressed in platform shoes and a wide-brimmed hat.
On the other: a silhouette of a woman in a sexually suggestive pose, and a set of handcuffs attached to a pair of brown hands.
The coin was created in the vice department and was not an official item of the KC police department.
Advertised in the Kansas City Police Department’s newsletter in early January, 2021, The Daily Informant, the challenge coin “was meant to commemorate the police department’s vice unit, tasked with investigating illegal sex work, alcohol sales, adult entertainment venues and human trafficking.”
The link to ordering the coin was disabled, but the article does not indicate when.
The department requested that everyone in the vice unit had 48 hours to explain how the coin was developed. The article notes that the department declined to say whether anyone had be disciplined.
A couple of comments about what happened.
The police department’s Office of Community Complaints received 10 internal, anonymous complaints about the coin. A number of those complaints came from female officers and staff.
To me, this is the most disturbing aspect of this story.
A rendering of the coin had been approved by several unit supervisors but not by the bureau commander or the deputy chief who oversees the vice unit . . .
More than 165 police officers, civilian employees and retired department members wrote to the vice unit seeking to buy the coin or see the images. Those interested included an assistant division commander, sergeants, homicide and assault detectives, and internal affairs investigators, according to emails obtained by The Star through public records requests.
“That coin is SO ridiculous and I think I need two! Thanks, let me know how to pay you,” one officer wrote.
“Looks like there was some negative feedback about it, but I saw nothing offensive that didn’t represent what you all do on a daily basis,” another officer said in an email. “Let me know the best method to make my $7.00 payment.”
I live in Kansas City.
It is appalling to know so many KC police wanted one of these.