Antara Murshed
Staff Writer
Last week seven police San Francisco police officers were suspended for racist and homophobic text messages they were caught exchanging. Some text messages even spoke of lynching African Americans and burning crosses. The San Francisco Police Chief has recommended they be fired. What do you think? Should they be fired, or should they be allowed back on the force after their suspension and face other kinds of consequences such as intensive sensitivity training?
Evelyn Cancino
Sophomore architecture major
“In my opinion, sensitivity training is not a substantial punishment. Although it may seem too harsh to some, I think that these officers should be fired. Instances like this will continue to occur unless we make an example of these people and punish them because if these types of situations continue to be slid under the rug; no one will learn that a persons skin color or sexual orientation doesn’t make them any less of a person than yourself. In addition, I feel as though reviewing over 1000 cases in which these officers were involved may be beneficial since they may discover that biased judgements had been made.”
Verdah Kazi
Junior psychology major
“Well, I am very conflicted. Knowing that they could have handled as many as 1000 cases or more with prejudice or racism really makes me lean to believing they should be fired because there’s no telling what they can do to future cases. I have a lot of doubt that someone with this mindset could change so quickly through training. I understand they need jobs to survive, but at the same time, they don’t have the right to be working in a field that requires them to be open-minded, understanding, caring, etc, to ALL kinds of people, regardless of their demographic. So yes, I do feel that I would lean towards them losing their positions.”
Derrick Bonilla
Freshman business administration major
“The seven police officers should be fired. Racism, sexism and homophobia should not be characteristics that are found in police officers. Individuals who represent the law should set positive examples for citizens. Categorizing, targeting and dehumanizing specific persons could possibly lead to police brutality, hate crimes and/or tragedies such as the murders of Oscar Grant and Walter Scott. These police officers may not undergo sensitivity training but they will face several consequences such as losing their jobs and making it much more difficult to acquire jobs in the future. Firing these police officers will set an example for other officers that this kind of behavior is not acceptable.”
