Ohio Police Chief Resigns Immediately When Told He Had Minutes To Exit Building After Video Captured Him Leaving KKK Sign On Black Officer’s Desk

An Ohio police chief retired imme­di­ate­ly after he was placed under inves­ti­ga­tion for leav­ing a racial­ly intim­i­dat­ing note on the desk of a Black police offi­cer. Sheffield Lake Police Chief Anthony Campo retired from the depart­ment on June 29 after he became the sub­ject of an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion for leav­ing a note con­tain­ing the words “Ku Klux Klan” on the desk of the Black offi­cer. Campo had been with the depart­ment in the Cleveland sub­urb for 33 years and served as chief for eight.
Footage from June 25 shows Campo leav­ing the note on the officer’s coat in the book­ing room. Campo dis­played a jack­et intend­ed to look like the robes worn by KKK mem­bers, placed the KKK sign on the jack­et then wait­ed for the offi­cer to walk in and see the dis­play. The sur­veil­lance cam­era cap­tured the Black offi­cer read the offen­sive mes­sage and laugh. Other offi­cers can also be seen walk­ing by read­ing the note.

Mayor Dennis Bring said he became aware of the note on June 30, when law direc­tor David Graves informed him of a “real bad” com­plaint from the police union “I just looked at it and said, what’s this all about?” the may­or told The Morning Journal. “And he goes, ‘you aren’t even going to believe this.’”The com­plaint said that Campo had retrieved the note from the copy machine, then walked over and put it on the officer’s desk. “It said Ku Klux Klan on the back,” Bring said. “I don’t know how much more offen­sive you can pos­si­bly get.” According to Bring, Campo believes the note is just a joke and doesn’t under­stand why peo­ple are upset, but the Black offi­cer was clear­ly made to feel uncom­fort­able by the note. “How can you pos­si­bly think that you can put some­thing on somebody’s jack­et like that, and espe­cial­ly if they were African-American, and think this is a joke? This is the most egre­gious and offen­sive thing you could pos­si­bly do. And it’s embar­rass­ing and dis­gust­ing.” Bring took steps right away to place Campo on leave and had plans to ter­mi­nate him. When Campo learned of the harass­ment com­plaint against him, he said, “So am I fired?” and began to type his res­ig­na­tion let­ter. “He says, ‘This is what I get up to 30 years,’” the may­or said. “I said what you’re going to get is 10 min­utes to get out of your office.” Bring ulti­mate­ly allowed Campo to sub­mit his retire­ment papers. Officials are look­ing through the chief’s com­put­er to see if there is any­thing else of con­cern on the device. Bring apol­o­gized to city staff and had a con­ver­sa­tion with the Black offi­cer who was the recip­i­ent of the note. The offi­cer expressed a desire to stay with the depart­ment and said that the laugh he let out upon see­ing the note was a gut reaction.

The Black offi­cer has been with the depart­ment for less than a year. He has since retained an attor­ney, and Bring said he would back the offi­cer if he decides to take fur­ther action against Campo Campo said the note was meant to be fun­ny. “That’s all it was,” Campo said. “I had a jok­ing back-and-forth ban­ter with that offi­cer since I hired him,” he said. But Cleveland NAACP President James Hardiman believes the note is no laugh­ing mat­ter. “It’s sig­nif­i­cant because it’s indica­tive of a much big­ger prob­lem. For a per­son in a posi­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ty to assume that he can get away with that, it’s trag­ic. Is this an iso­lat­ed instance? Or, was this accept­ed pro­to­col until he got caught?” James Hardiman told Fox8.