Another round of racist and homophobic text messages sent by various Antioch police officers have just been made public.
The new batch, revealed in court documents, includes racist remarks aimed at the city's Black police chief.
“It is what it is, it doesn’t change anything and the process still moves forward,” said Antioch police Chief Steven Ford.
He is taking the high road after an East Bay Times report revealed another round of racist text messages shared amongst officers in the department.
The district attorney's office declined to comment on the text messages, only saying it was a part of discovery made available to defense counsel in a 2020 Antioch murder case.
This is the second round of racist text messages connected to the department. The first batch were made public by the DA back in April.
The latest round involves many of the same officers and includes a text message from one officer saying, “have you met the new chief yet?” And using a gorilla emoji in reference to Chief Ford.
“It’s disappointing obviously when you hear things like that. But that doesn’t define me as a man, this doesn't define me as the chief of this organization,” said Ford.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe renewed his call for the officers involved to be fired immediately.
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So far, the officers have been placed on leave amidst an ongoing investigation into the matter.
“All I can tell you is that is these officers need to go, we don't need them here ... this is contrary to who we are,” said Thorpe.
Ford said the investigations must wrap up before he can attempt to terminate anyone, but is attempting to find perspective.
“I think the overarching theme is that it's very unfortunate that the organization gets jacketed as a whole as the outcome of the actions of a few,” he said.
Civil rights attorney John Burris filed a civil lawsuit against the department after the first messages became public in April and said he now plans to file another similar lawsuit in the coming week.
He feels the new batch of racist text messages show a disturbing trend.
“I would say there’s deep seeded disdain perhaps in American and Brown people amongst those police officers,” said Burris.
