AKA William

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The arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has brought out some unfortunate behavior by police. And by “unfortunate” I mean racist and homophobic.

You might have heard of the Boston police officer Justin Barrett who, in an email sent to venting his frustrations with Gates’, referred to Gates as a “banana-eating jungle monkey.” Three times. And said Gates should have been pepper-sprayed.

Of course, Officer Barrett said, “I’m not a racist.” And that his words were taken out of context.

In other related and equally discriminatory news, the Washington Blade is reporting that Washington D.C. resident Pepin Tuma, 33, a gay attorney in private practice, was arrested over the weekend after a police officer overheard him telling two friends “jokingly” and in a loud voice, “I hate the police.”

In an email to D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who has ordered an internal investigation, Tuma wrote that after hearing an officer “charged 40-50 feet towards us while yelling at me phrases like ‘who do you think you are’ and ‘who do you think you’re talking to.’”

In his email, Tuma continued to explain what happened to him, “I said nothing at this time, except asking why I was being detained, whether I was being arrested, and my belief that it was not a crime to offer an opinion to my friends about the police.”

He said the officer, later identified as Second District Officer J. Culp, pushed him against a transformer box, placed him under arrest and handcuffed him without immediately informing him of the charge: “As Officer Culp moved me toward a police cruiser, he told me to ‘just shut up, faggot.’”

Tuma was booked and released about four hours later after agreeing to pay a fine. Tuma plans to fully contest the charge of “disorderly conduct” and has filed an official complaint.