A surveillance camera caught former Ohio police chief Anthony Campo placing a “Ku Klux Klan” sig on the desk of a Black officer, HuffPost reports, and he was put on administrative leave. On Tuesday, he retired after 33 years on the force.
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Campo printed out the words using the office’s copier then put it on top of a raincoat he folded to look like a Klansman’s hood. The officer Campo was targeting reported the racist harassment to his union. Initially, Mayor Dennis Bring decided on administrative leave because he had not seen the video. After he saw it, he claims he addressed Campo very harshly.
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“The chief was standing in his office,” Bring said. “He made a joke, ‘Am I gonna get fired over this?’ And I looked at the law director, and I handed him his paper, and he says, ‘After 30 years, this is what I get?’ I said, ‘You have 10 minutes to get out of your office.’”
Moments later, Campo offered his resignation which was accepted by the city.
“My view of it is that it was an extremely poor decision of somebody who thought this was a complete joke and didn’t have the understanding of the magnitude of what he has done,” Bring said. “I don’t care, and somebody’s made a comment in this day and age it doesn’t matter this day and age, or if it was 40 years ago, that is the most inappropriate thing you can do to an African American. I don’t care; that was just totally offensive.”
In an interview with Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS, Campo claims the sign and coat were a “joke” that “got out of hand.”
“I hired that officer on the force, he’s excellent with children, and I helped to save his job after he was in danger of being let go by another department due to age restrictions,” Campo insisted. The unnamed officer has decided to stay with the department after a conversation with Mayor Bring.
“It took us 10 minutes to even talk to each other because we were both so emotional,” Bring said. “I apologized. We talked about it and as we did, he told me more about it. I was flabbergasted. There’s no one word to explain how disgusting this is.”
*First Published: July 4, 2021, 7:03 am
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