SFPD Doesn't Have A Racism Problem, Says SFPD: SFist

With the recent officer-involved shooting of yet another person of color providing yet another example of what some claim to be institutional racism in the San Francisco Police Department, five officers spoke with two different publications over the course of the past week in order to assure the citizens of San Francisco that not only is the force not fundamentally racist but that there aren't even any racist members in the ranks.

Specifically, The Marshall Project spoke with two sergeants and two officers — all on the record, and the author of the piece took pains to points out that only one of the four interviewed is white.

Vice, meanwhile, scored an interview with an anonymous member of the force who seemed very much to echo the thoughts expressed by the four named officers.

The general sentiment expressed by all the SFPD interviews came down to this: The police department is not racist, and any evidence to the contrary is just the public misinterpreting cop culture.

"No, I don’t think the force is racist," Sergeant Lloyd Martin, who is African American, told the Marshall Project. "I mean, sometimes officers joke around with each other to release steam. As for someone who’s outright bigoted: No."

The anonymous officer had almost exactly the same thing to say to Vice. "I don't believe, nor have I seen, anything that made me think that there is a culture of racism within this police department." He continued that it was really just "trash talk" and "gallows humor" that we, the citizenry, mistakenly overheard and consequently took out of context.

But what about the two separate racist texting scandals? According to Martin, it's all in good fun. "I’ve heard black officers make fun of black officers and Asians make fun of Asians and Hispanics make fun of each other, and all of them are different," he explained. "All of them together are blowing off steam in good fun."

So, there you have it. The San Francisco Police Department doesn't have a racism problem. Well, according to the San Francisco Police Department, that is.

SFPD Doesn't Have A Racism Problem, Says SFPD

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