BOSTON -- A Massachusetts mayor on Thursday fired a white police officer accused of using a racial slur to taunt Boston Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford, saying the officer had "brought discredit" on himself and the department.
"You have demonstrated through your racist comments that you cannot continue as a patrol officer," Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella wrote in his termination notice to officer John Perrault.
Mazzarella's decision comes a day after Police Chief Robert Healey recommended during a disciplinary hearing that the mayor fire Perrault, saying he'd used racial slurs at least twice before.
Perrault's attorney, Joseph Sandulli, said his client would either appeal through the civil service commission or file a grievance through the police union. Sandulli said Perrault didn't intend the word as a racist insult and the city overreacted.
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Gordon Edes and the rest of the ESPNBoston.com team have the Red Sox covered for you. Blog "He was criticizing Crawford for being a bad player, not because he was a black man," Sandulli said.
A Red Sox spokeswoman said the team would have no comment on the decision.
Perrault had been on paid leave since he called Crawford a "Monday" before a July 5 minor league game in Manchester, N.H.
The word can be used as a derogatory term for blacks, and is often associated with Mondays being one of the most-hated days of the week, such as in the common phrase, "I hate Mondays."
Allegedly the officer's intend was to insult and used one that is apparently well known in those circles (although I've never heard that one.) Since calling someone a "Monday" on the surface non-nonsensical, it can only be interpreted as an attempted insult and obviously someone has heard it used that way before.
Let them all deal with it. it's their world.
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03:41 PM
spark1 Member
Posts: 11159 From: Benton County, OR Registered: Dec 2002
Allegedly the officer's intend was to insult and used one that is apparently well known in those circles (although I've never heard that one.) Since calling someone a "Monday" on the surface non-nonsensical, it can only be interpreted as an attempted insult and obviously someone has heard it used that way before.
Let them all deal with it. it's their world.
It turns out that "Mondays" is the new "N" word and thats the reason for the title of the post.
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04:59 PM
Raydar Member
Posts: 41438 From: Carrollton GA. Out in the... country. Registered: Oct 1999
Well I like it, Monday is the new word. I want to be able to use the "N" word for people of all races that lazy, dangerous or, untrustworthy based on experience. Raised in what became an affluent town, I never learned racism but, learned that the words were meant to describe bad behavior.
[This message has been edited by FriendGregory (edited 07-27-2012).]
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06:37 PM
Tony Kania Member
Posts: 20794 From: The Inland Northwest Registered: Dec 2008
So, which one of our members are going to tell me that I cannot say Monday now?
This shat needs to stop. I bet now we will have obama have a black education initiative. Oh, snap!
President Obama on Thursday signed an executive order launching a White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans, to be housed in the Education Department. The election-year move was welcomed by leaders in the black community but criticized by conservative groups.
“In the less than 60 years since the Brown v. Board of Education decision put America on a path toward equal educational opportunity, America's educational system has undergone a remarkable transformation,” Obama wrote. “However, substantial obstacles to equal educational opportunity still remain in America's educational system. African-Americans lack equal access to highly effective teachers and principals, safe schools, and challenging college-preparatory classes, and they disproportionately experience school discipline and referrals to special education.”
To help remedy such disparities, the initiative, consisting of an executive director, a President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African-Americans and an interagency working group, will aim for “increasing general understanding of the causes of the educational challenges faced by African-American students” and identifying evidence-based practices to improve education outcomes from preschool through college.
It will complement and reinforce past executive orders promoting historically black colleges and universities. Obama has named Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, chairman of the new commission.
Following a gathering at the White House, a group of black leaders welcomed the move. Ben Jealous, president of NAACP, said, “this initiative will help ensure ongoing progress toward that day when all students have equal access to educational excellence and no student can find examples of racism anywhere in their schools except chronicled in their history books.”
Criticism was leveled by Roger Clegg, president and general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, who told Government Executive, “it is a bad idea for the president to set up a new bureaucracy with a focus on one particular racial group, to the exclusion of all others.” He said Obama in the past has rejected policies that targeted one group for racial preferences, “but apparently election-year pressures to pander to his base have gotten too strong.”
Clegg said the executive order is “silent on the main reason for racial disparities in educational outcomes,” which he attributes to a high percentage of blacks born out of wedlock. That later leads, he said, to disproportionate behavioral problems in schools and greater tendency to commit crimes.
