AURORA, CO (CNN) – The Colorado police officer caught making racist comments on a bodycam video is returning to work.
Charles Deshazer was fired shortly afterwards, but a decision to reinstate him was recently made by the local civil service commission, and not everyone is happy about that.
WARNING: In the video, you will hear the body cam video of an Aurora police officer in reference to a crowd of African-Americans at the scene of a police shooting. It involves disturbing language.
“We have all the Alabama porch monkeys contained.”
The cop recording this immediately turned off his bodycam after hearing Charles Deshazer utter what Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz says is inexcusable.
“I’ve heard from so many people in our agency, so many police officers, officers who have been here you know 5, 10, 15, 20-plus years of all races who are absolutely appalled by what he said and many not happy by the return,” says Metz.
Deshazer was suspended soon after the June 18, 2017 bodycam remark.
Chief Metz fired Deshazer on September 1, 2017.
But about a year after the incident – June 29 of this year – the civil service commission reinstated Deshazer, writing his “statement was absolutely reprehensible and should never have been uttered by an Aurora police officer, much less a Lieutenant. However, the majority of the commission finds that termination is an excessive sanction.”
“The message I would want to make sure the public knows is that its police department did its job . We said, ‘You know what? That’s not representative of the Aurora Police Department. We’re better than that.’”
When approached by reporters at his farm in Hudson, Colorado, Deshazer had nothing to say, asking the reporter to leave soon after being approached.
Deshazer won’t be allowed back at the department until he goes through the training academy again and he’ll return as a Sergeant not a Lieutenant.
Plus, the chief says Deshazer will not be allowed to supervise other officers or interact with the public as a street cop.
“It does look bad. I agree with you 110 percent,” Metz says of Deshazer being allowed to return to the police force.
The city could have appealed the decision by the civil service board, but reportedly has decided not to do so.