CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Six patrol officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department have been cited for termination after investigators found racist text messages, according to people familiar with the case.
The messages, which included the use of a racial slur, turned up during an investigation into misuse of the department’s Flock license plate camera system by a former officer. In July, that officer was accused of using the license plate reader system to track an individual, and he was later charged with illegally accessing a government computer for non-law enforcement purposes.
The department said in a statement that it will not tolerate any behavior that goes against its core values or puts at risk the trust it has built with residents. The statement noted that in her first 100 days in office, Chief Patterson visited every unit within the department to spell out expectations and the shared duty to keep high ethical standards.
Chief Estella D. Patterson leads a consolidated city-county agency, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which serves both the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. She also called the president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP to share news of the findings, and local civil rights leaders have asked that the officers lose their law enforcement certifications.
The six officers have not been publicly named. The next step is for the city’s Civil Service Board to hear evidence and make a final decision on whether the six officers will be fired.
