An assistant chief of police in Prospect, Kentucky, told a Louisville Metro Police recruit that he should shoot Black juveniles if he found them smoking marijuana, according to documents recently uncovered by WDRB.
The recruit asked the police chief, Todd Shaw, what he should do if he comes across juveniles smoking weed.
“Fucking the right thing. If black shoot them,” Shaw wrote in a Facebook message to the recruit.
Shaw had previously worked for 20 years as a Louisville police officer. He was suspended and then fired last year from the Prospect force after a letter to the mayor exposed Shaw’s “highly disturbing racist and threatening Facebook messages.”
Shaw fought to keep the messages private, but a judge ruled that the records must be released this week.
When the recruit asked what to tell the victims’ parents, Shaw responded: “… call their (pa)rents … if mom is hot then fuck her … if dad is hot then handcuff him and make him suck my dick. Unless daddy is black. … Then shoot him.”
Prosecutors found the messages while screening for a separate criminal case they were exploring against Shaw. In that case, Shaw was under investigation for interfering with a sexual abuse probe while he was working for the police department, according to WDRB. He allegedly provided illegal assistance to an officer charged with committing sexual abuse of teens.
After the messages were discovered, Shaw was suspended with pay on Sept. 1. Police Chief Jeff Sherrard opened an internal investigation leading to Shaw’s resignation on Nov. 20.
In other messages, Shaw told the recruit that housing projects in the area needed to be scrubbed.
“For years I have seen the blacks live off uss (sic) and putting them in one big housing area breeds HUGE peoblems (sic)” Shaw wrote. “We don’t see a Muslim problem around here we just see lazy ass people that don’t want to work and that entices more Mexicans to cross the border and take the American jobs.”
Prospect Mayor John Evans called the messages “abhorrent, disgusting, and reprehensible,” in a press release.
“The City of Prospect has zero tolerance for the type of content sent by Shaw,” Evans wrote. “I want to make it crystal clear: neither the City of Prospect, not its citizens, condone, support or endorses the views expressed by Shaw in these postings/messages.”
H/T Courier Journal
