Ohio state troopers disciplined for Ku Klux Klan photo - AP

[Yrys]

Ohio state troopers disciplined for Ku Klux Klan photo

SANDUSKY, Ohio (AP) -- A highway patrolman who was photographed in a handmade Ku Klux Klan costume while on duty the day before the Martin Luther
King Jr. holiday has been suspended without pay, authorities said.

A fellow trooper who transmitted the cell-phone photo of white-masked lawman has been demoted.

Craig Franklin, a 12-year veteran of the Ohio Highway Patrol, is pictured in the January 20 photo with a white cone on his head, white paper mask and a white cloth
covering his shoulders, according to a highway patrol report. Franklin is otherwise in trooper uniform. A handgun holster, a radio normally issued by the patrol and other
police equipment can be seen in the photo, the report said. Franklin and Trooper Eric Wlodarsky told an investigator that the picture was taken as a joke and was
modeled on a television skit by comedian Dave Chappelle.

Highway patrol officials began an investigation after the patrol's Administrative Investigative Unit received an anonymous letter that included two photographs of Franklin
in the outfit, an interoffice memo said.

Franklin, Wlodarsky, another trooper and a dispatcher discussed Martin Luther King Jr. Day at their post on the day the photo was taken, the report said. The national
holiday was the following day. None of the 13 troopers assigned to the Sandusky post are black. "Obviously, we're extremely disappointed," said patrol spokesman
Lt. Shawn Davis. "This kind of conduct cannot and will not be tolerated."

Following a March 24 hearing, Wlodarsky was demoted from sergeant to trooper, transferred to another post and must attend a diversity awareness class. Franklin was
placed on a five-day unpaid suspension, and must take part in diversity awareness training, patrol documents showed.

A third trooper who received the picture via a text message was given a one-day suspension for failing to report the incident and forwarding the photo to a subordinate.

 

[RTaylor]

I honestly think that they shouldn't have had much done to them except the Diversity class, I mean it was a joke for crying out loud, and the guy stated it's from Dave Chappele for crying out loud, and I can almost guarantee that not many real racists would sit and watch his show.

Americans are always so overboard when it comes to the dealing with people who could have -maybe- offended someone. I guess it's their legal system down there and how far overboard some people will go that cause such heavy handed responses.

 

[Yrys]

I mean it was a joke for crying out loud

Because they say so doesn's mean it is so ( I don't know).

But it sure doesn't look funnier then the "nooses hung from an oak tree" , don't you think ?

 

[RTaylor]

I still think that it was handled way to harshly.

A suspension for several days, temporary demotion until they completed the sensitivity training and a probation period would have sufficed in my opinion. And a written apology to their department for being tasteless enough to show the uniform / car in the photo.

They're just making a huge stink over it because it was just Martin Luther King day, it it was at the end of August they wouldn't have even mentioned it on CNN, and I doubt it would have garnered such a response from their detatchment. But without a doubt someone tipped CNN and this is how it was dealt with.

 

[geo]

RT
For a young State Ttrooper to do the thing is one thing.... for someone with the rank and seniority of a Sgt to go and get himself photographed doing it is something altogether different & definitively gives the wrong signal to his subordinates....

 

[RTaylor]

All we can do is speculate why he did it, and to me it was a joke and doesn't merit all the attention or BS.

 

[Trinity]

They're just making a huge stink over it because it was just Martin Luther King day, it it was at the end of August they wouldn't have even mentioned it on CNN, and I doubt it would have garnered such a response from their detatchment. But without a doubt someone tipped CNN and this is how it was dealt with.

This act (regardless of it being before Martin Luther King day) is a HUGE boundary violation.
Even as a joke, it is in poor taste, offensive to others, and in uniform??? wow.  The Sgt.
has shown a serious lack of regard and common sense which is critical to his position.  He's lucky
to have even kept his job.

If you think that this is simply a joke and taken way out of context then I suggest you put on your DEU's
and replicate the act and see what happens to you. 

 

[medaid]

Joke? I don't think so. How would you like it if a member of the RCMP did something like that? What about a member of the RNC? It was distasteful and sensitivity training or not, he should be fired.

 

[Blackadder1916]

If a Sgt of the Ohio State Police enjoys such jokes in public, (and the term public applies since it was done in uniform, on duty and in view of someone else) he can probably find a comedy club and either do it himself on an open-mike night or perhaps even see Dave Chapelle do it live.  But participating in, condoning or failing to stop such activity by his subordinates is probably contrary to his department's regulations.   Behaviour like this has been condemned for some time.  If a supervisor in a modern police department is unaware that what he was doing (or permitting his men to do) was in violation of policy then it calls into question his intelligence and knowlege to be a Sgt.  If he was aware that it was in violation of policy and still permitted it, it calls into question his ethics.  Perhaps the leadership of the Ohio State Police also questioned whether they wanted to send a message that stupid, ill-trained and unethical police officers are not required or tolerated.  Oh, seems they sent that messsage.

 

[geo]

uhh.... NFC?

 

[medaid]

uhh.... NFC?

Royal NewFoundland Constabulary

 

[Blackadder1916]

NewFoundland Constabulary

RNC - Royal Newfoundland Constabulary

 

[medaid]

RNC - Royal Newfoundland Constabulary

Modified and changed. My bad. D'oh! Thanks B1916

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

All we can do is speculate why he did it, and to me it was a joke and doesn't merit all the attention or BS.

No, it merits an immediate firing....................."on duty" means something in the LEO world. One of my comrades was this stupid and I'd flush him/her in a heartbeat.

 

[geo]

RNC... check - I remember them as being RCMP constables from my days on the Rock.
They have since become the RNC....

 

[CougarKing]

Just curious- if it's US State troopers we are talking about- who are more police officers than military- shouldn't this be more in the "Security and Emergency Services" section of army.ca?  ???

 

[OldSolduer]

Yes they should be reprimanded. They must not only obey the law but be seen to be obeying the law.
As for Americans being racially sensitive, and us Canadians looking down our noses at them....think again. There's plenty of racism here (Canada) to go around.
See what happens when you call an Aboriginal person an "Indian".

 

[Blackadder1916]

RNC... check - I remember them as being RCMP constables from my days on the Rock.
They have since become the RNC....

No, the RCMP are still the RCMP and continues to provide provincial police services to most of the province (mainly smaller communities and rural areas, but that makes up a lot of Nfld).  The RNC (who were granted the title Royal in 1979) mainly police the "metropolitan" areas; St.John's and surrounding areas, Corner Brook, and Labrador West (Lab City, Wabush, Churchill Falls).  When I was growing up in St. John's, their jurisdiction had shrunk to just the city of St. John's; the RCMP did everything outside the city limits.  They weren't the RNC then, official title was The Newfoundland Constabulary, but usually just referred to as the city police (vice RCMP), the Constabulary or the 'stab.  I'll leave out the derogatory nicknames.

 

[geo]

Hmm... am positive that, while I lived in Lab City 77-80, the RCMP detachment was rolled over into a RNC detachment.
I remember that some of the RCMP constables rolled over into the RNC - just could not swear on the bible that they all did.

It's been a while & memory seems to get fuzzy once in a while...

 

[Blackadder1916]

You may be correct about the time frame for expansion of RNC jurisdiction,  I left the island before that.  I remember some friends (who were in the RNC) saying that some mounties transferred to the RNC when they moved into other locations (there was generally an open offer to any who wanted to transfer) but it wasn't the same as when the Nfld Rangers (former provincal/rural police force in Nfld) were transferred in mass to the RCMP in 1950.