CHARLOTTE — The fallout continues after the discovery of a yearslong text chain containing racist and sexist messages between six Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers.
The incident has some officers feeling like they are under siege.
“I truly believe that majority of officers are good officers,” said Fonda Bryant, a woman who has trained hundreds of Charlotte officers in suicide prevention and mental wellness. “I really believe that, as a Black woman, as a mental health and suicide prevention advocate, I believe that.”
Bryant has talked to a lot of officers since the racist text message scandal broke.
“I think you can hear the stress, but I think you can hear a lot of disappointment too that people are so quick to throw them under the bus,” she said.
This week, CMPD Chief Estella Patterson confirmed that she cited six officers for termination because of their involvement in a text message chain that contained racist, sexist, and inappropriate religious messages.
Bryant said she is a realist and she knows that some officers cross the line, but thinks it’s just as wrong for the public to stereotype as it is for the officers.
“We don’t like to be stereotyped and judged and put in one box,” she said. “Like if somebody out here is Black and does a heinous crime, you would not want to be labeled as, ‘Oh, my God. All of them do that,’ so I’m asking the public, asking our Black community, my Black community to judge them as individuals.”
Bryant also thinks it’s wrong for every CMPD officer to be labeled a racist.
“I know better, and I think that what people need to realize, they are human. They make mistakes, but there are good officers because good Lord, that job is hard.”
Three of the officers cited have resigned.
The remaining three may go to the Civil Service Board and try and keep their jobs.