California’s top law enforcement officer will investigate if a police department rocked by racist and derogatory text message allegations committed widespread civil rights abuses, officials say.
A spokeswoman for the police department in Antioch, northeast of San Francisco, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Bonta's investigation.
Police Chief Steven Ford has condemned the “racially abhorrent content and incomprehensible behavior being attributed to members of the Antioch Police Department in media reports.”Eight officers have been placed on administrative leave in connection with the allegations, said Michael Rains, a lawyer representing some of the officers named in the report.
Rains said Wednesday that he has no objection to Bonta's looking into the matter,"provided it is done in a thorough and objective fashion." "I think if the Attorney General does so, and reports any findings to the public, he will conclude that, despite suggestions in many media accounts that inappropriate text messaging was widespread in the agency, that was simply not the case — the text messages which Mr. Bonta and others have described as offensive have been generated by very few officers," Rains said in an email.
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