Police Officer Reported His Own Department To Black Lives Matter

Black and white Tennessee offi­cers report­ed their department’s alleged racism to Black Lives Matter (BLM).

The depart­ment of Millersville, Tenn., alleged­ly has a cul­ture of harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion, so Robert Black cre­at­ed a fake Facebook to con­tact his local BLM chap­ter, The Daily Beast reported.

During that time, the assis­tant police chief, Dustin Carr, was under inves­ti­ga­tion for alleged­ly assault­ing his wife, who was her­self alleged­ly involved in an affair with a drug sus­pect. Black and oth­er police offi­cers claim they were fired for not com­ply­ing with “Blue Lives Matter.”

In addi­tion to ques­tion­ing the police depart­ment man­age­ment, Black endured alleged sex­u­al harass­ment, includ­ing a female offi­cer grab­bing his gen­i­tals, and a sec­ond inci­dent in which a male alleged­ly made dis­parag­ing com­ments about Black’s bira­cial son.

In a new law­suit, Joshua Barnes, a for­mer Millersville Police sergeant who is Black, claims the depart­ment har­bors a cul­ture of harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion. Robert Black, who is white with a bira­cial son, has joined Barnes in the law­suit.

The lawsuit’s three defen­dants are Millersville Police Chief Mark Palmer, Assistant Chief Dustin Carr and the city of Millersville. Palmer told The Daily Beast that all com­ments must be addressed to the city man­ag­er, which did not return requests for com­ment, and nei­ther did Carr.

Palmer and the city had already in the past faced racial dis­crim­i­na­tion alle­ga­tions. In 2015, two Black offi­cers sued Palmer for racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, claim­ing that each of them was told “I don’t like n — –s.”

One of the men, Anthony Hayes, claimed Palmer took him to a for­mer Ku Klux Klan leader’s home, where Hayes “was sub­ject­ed to an extend­ed con­ver­sa­tion in the pres­ence of KKK memorabilia.”

Hayes claimed that Palmer placed a copy of a KKK mag­a­zine in his police lock­er, with a sticky note that read, “This was left for you — don’t let your sub­scrip­tion run out.”

“You can’t find this any­where,” Black said of the KKK mag­a­zine. “That’s why I hit up BLM reps. I was like, ‘hey y’all…’”

In their response to the law­suit, the city denied the alle­ga­tions against Palmer. The city manager’s office has not respond­ed to a request for com­ment from Changing America.

Brian McCartherenes, the oth­er offi­cer who sued Palmer, said they were being forced out of their post after they accused the depart­ment of racism.

According to a police memo, McCartherenes was fired for alleged racist con­duct, telling a new Black offi­cer at the time, “At the end of the day, remem­ber you are Black.” McCartherenes says he intend­ed the com­ment as a warn­ing about the risks of the job.

Robert Black was fired by the city man­ag­er for incit­ing a protest on Sept. 11, 2020, but the protest was rel­a­tive­ly peace­ful with­out any­thing get­ting dam­aged or any­one get­ting arrest­ed, con­trary to the warn­ings of the then-city man­ag­er who alleged­ly told Black in pri­vate to “tell every­one who is involved in this [BLM protest] that we are com­ing after them next!”

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