Police Officer Fired Over Racist BlackBerry Rant

A Boston police officer was fired on Friday for sending an e-mail last July that contained racial slurs about African-American Studies Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr.

In his e-mail, Officer Justin Barrett, referred to Gates as a "jungle monkey.” The one-paragraph, page-long tirade was written in response to a column that was published in The Boston Globe in July about Gates' arrest.

For those of you who hadn't read the e-mail until now (don't worry, we didn't either), here are some noteworthy, or rather, outrageous highlights. We gave it a ridiculousness rating of 9.6 out of 10.

"Article writer, That was, by far, the worst article I've ever read."

Thus begins the worst e-mail we've ever read.

"I am embarassed [sic] I paid the 1.50 for the paper..."

No worries! Read The Crimson instead. It's free.

"That paragraph was as pathetic as jungle monkey gibberish - I might as well ax you the question. 'Is this your first test at reporting?'"

Uh...

"[Y]ou state Gates is 'this immensely famous expert on race' - you really have to be kidding me? Famous for what? Expert why and says who?"

Let's just say the rest of the e-mail pretty much speaks for itself.

"I am not a racist. but I am prejudice towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they claim is freedom when it is merely attention because you do not receive enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers."

The PDF version of the e-mail released by the Boston Police showed that the message had been sent from his BlackBerry. Just imagine how long this e-mail must have taken to type out on his BlackBerry—so much time to reconsider!