Three Wichita Kansas Police Officers Suspended Over Inappropriate, Racist Meme, Black Officer Among Those Suspended

Three Wichita, Kansas, police officers have been suspended after they sent racist, homophobic or inappropriate messages to several other law enforcement officials.

City Manager Robert Layton ordered the suspensions of the officers which will be for 15 days. Interim police chief Lemuel Moore’s plan for eight-day suspensions was seen as too little, The Wichita Eagle reported.

Layton then ordered that the officers also undergo psychological exams when they return to work and before they can be moved from desk work to regular duties.

An investigation into the messages began after The Eagle reported about them in March while noting that none of the officers involved had been disciplined.

“The argument that this was a private conversation is superseded by the fact that the public had obtained the conversation and it was no longer private to the individuals involved,” Moore said Thursday.

A city report that came out in April slammed the department leaders for not adequately disciplining those involved in the messages and mishandling the investigation.

Investigators in Kansas accused 13 Wichita police officers, three Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputies, and two city firefighters of sending and receiving inappropriate text messages.

The employees suspended Thursday include a Black officer who allegedly sent a racist George Floyd meme amid the protests in 2020; a white officer who then forwarded the meme to a deputy; and a white officer who identified with the “Three Percenters,” which is an anti-government militia group connected to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Two other officers were given written reprimands and must undergo sensitivity training because they were in a text thread where SWAT team members joked about killing civilians and being “the ultimate de-escalators.”

Three other officers resigned from the department during the investigation.