Racist Video With President Obama, KKK Sparks More Trouble for Florida Cops

The fallout for four Fort Lauderdale Police officers accused of sending racist texts and creating a video featuring President Barack Obama and the KKK hasn’t ended yet.

The Broward County State Attorney’s Office has announced that it has dropped more than 40 cases involving the four accused policemen, WSVN reported.

“All the defendants were black; all the cases were dropped because at least one of the officers was the principal officer involved in the arrest,” Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for the state attorney’s office, was quoted by the Sun-Sentinel as saying. “This is a serious matter.”

Other cases involving the four officers remain under review and charges are being dropped “where it is appropriate,” he told the paper.

Of the cases dropped so far, 19 are misdemeanors, 20 are felony cases and one involves a juvenile arrest, WSVN reported. Combined, the officers made 56 arrests of minority suspects since Jan. 1, 2014, the station noted. Charges dropped so far include cocaine possession, burglary and an aggravated assault with a firearm, the Sentinel noted.

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The four officers in question are James Wells, 30, Jason Holding, 31, Christopher Sousa, 25, and Alex Alvarez, 22. The first three were fired by the police department following an investigation into the allegations and Alvarez resigned his post in January.

The allegations against the four came to light when Alvarez’s ex-fiancee presented a video to law enforcement officials that Alvarez had reportedly made. She also mentioned the text messages between the four, Local 10 reported. Those text messages, the Sun-Sentinel reported, were laden with the use of the “N-word.”

The video in question was called “The Hoods” and was created to seem like a movie trailer, the station said. It contains a photo of Obama with gold teeth, a person in a KKK hood and other racially charged images.

The troubles in Fort Lauderdale erupted amid a backdrop of racial tension between police and residents across the nation. Most recently white North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager was charged with murder Tuesday following the shooting death of Walter Scott. Scott, a black man, was shot in the back following a traffic stop that was initiated for a brake light that was out, CNN reported.

Last August’s shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., sparked violent protests there and demonstrations across the country. In the Tampa and St. Petersburg area, peaceful protestors took the streets following a grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson.

Demonstrations were also staged across the country following a New York grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer in the choke-hold death of a black man. “I can’t breathe,” the words of Eric Garner, the man who died, became a rallying cry for many of the anti-police-violence protesters.

News of the decision to drop charges in the Fort Lauderdale officers’ cases came about a week after the state announced the arrest of two current and one former Department of Corrections employees in a murder plot. Those employees, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office stated, have KKK ties and planned to murder a former inmate who is black.

While the state attorney’s office continues to review arrests involving the four Fort Lauderdale officers, three are appealing their terminations. Hearings are scheduled for Holding, Wells and Sousa on April 15, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

Image via Shutterstock

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