Newly Revealed Records Show Just How Disturbingly Racist Many Ferguson Officials Truly Were

While it was already known that at least three Ferguson, Missouri, employees in the court system and police department regularly exchanged racist emails with one another, Friday, after a records request from the Washington Post, the actual emails were finally revealed.

What they show is a deeply disturbing strain of racism that was socially acceptable among essential government employees who not only interacted with African Americans consistently in the majority black town of Ferguson, but were in positions of power in which they could make life miserable for the people they clearly disdained.

Captain Richard Henke, who was the second in charge of the Ferguson Police Department, Sergeant William Mudd, who was the fourth in charge of the Ferguson Police Department and the supervising officer of Darren Wilson, and Mary Ann Twitty, the court clerk in Ferguson, sent vile and racist emails back and forth to one another for years, stemming back to at least 2008.

One cannot reasonably believe that men and women could send such hateful and disgusting emails for years and years, find them enjoyable and share them, but somehow miraculously compartmentalize that same racism when it came time to perform their daily duties. I'm not trying to insult janitors or repairmen, God bless them, but these were three essential employees in the Ferguson justice system.

Why was Twitty fired, but Henke and Mudd were allowed to resign when they all three did essentially the same thing?

These several emails that were discovered are obviously not the extent of their racism, but just a symptom of it. What does it say about Captain Henke, who ran the day-to-day affairs of the police department, that he sent and regularly received racist emails? When Sgt. Mudd and Mary Ann Twitty sent messages just to Captain Henke, what did they know about him that gave them the knowledge that he would be comfortable with such nastiness?

Was Darren Wilson, who reported to Mudd and has his arm around Twitty in this photo, a lone ranger that was unaware of their racism?

After President Obama was first elected in 2008, on November 14, 2008, Captain Rick Henke sent an email stating, "We shouldn’t worry about him being president for very long because what black man holds a steady job for four years.”

On March 1, 2010, Mary Ann Twitty sent the following email to Captain Henke and Sgt. Mudd, entitled "Last Child Support Cheque":

Today be my daughters 18th birthday.

I be so glad that dis be my last child support payment!
Month after month, year after year, all dose payments.

So I called my baby girl, Lakeesha to come to my house, and when she get here I say to her, "Baby girl, I want you to take dis cheque over to yo momma house and tell her dis is be the last check she ever gettin from me, and I want you to come back and me the spression on yo mama face.

So my baby girl took the cheque over to her momma.

I be anxious to hear what she say and about the 'spression on her face. Baby girl walk through the door, I say "Now what yo momma say bout that??

"She say to tell you that you ain't my daddy and watch the 'spression on yo face!!!"

On April 9, 2011, Twitty forwarded the email with the picture of Ronald Reagan feeding a chimp with the caption, "Rare photo of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in early 1962."

In May 2011, Sgt. Mudd forwarded an email to Twitty that she then forwarded to others. It stated:

A black woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital [for] pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.

On June 7, 2011, Sgt. Mudd sent an email comparing dogs to welfare recipients. It stated:

Last week I went to sign my dogs up for welfare. At first the lady said, "Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare." So I explained to her that my dogs are mixed in color, lazy, can't speak English, and have no friggin clue who their Daddies are. They expect me to feed them, provide them housing and medical care. So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify. My dogs got their first checks Friday. Damn this is a great country.

More disgusting emails were sent between employees are detailed here.