More Evidence Cops Don’t Care About Racist Cops

Not that we need anymore reason to want to defund and reform the police- but this story from Knoxville shows, even when another cop tried to call out racism, it is ignored.

The problem is systemic and the system is broken.

“Knoxville police commanders helped cover up an officer's racist comments and discouraged a Black officer from reporting him to internal affairs so the incidents would not become public, Knox News has learned. 

The incidents, say multiple officers who spoke to Knox News since November 2020, illustrate the department's long-standing problem dealing with racism. One officer said being racist is not a deal-breaker in the department, and officers see racism as commonly accepted by many within the force.

The attempt to conceal the racist comments began in 2019 and stretched until mid-2020, extending after Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon and Police Chief Eve Thomas announced in March 2020 the end to a separate internal investigation that found command staff had sought to cover up allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. Disciplinary action stemming from that investigation went all the way up the police chain of command, including Thomas.

Knoxville officers shared their concerns about racism in the department over months of interviews, during the same time as the Knoxville City Council reckons with its history of implementing discriminatory policies like urban removal and demonstrators call for police reform after five teenagers have been killed in gun violence in 2021, including one at the hands of an officer.

Sam Brown spent 27 years as a KPD officer until he retired in 2017. He told Knox News it's difficult to prove endemic racism in the department, especially to outsiders, because officers who experience or witness it don't feel secure enough to report it.

“And that’s the issue. Black officers feel this way, but they can’t prove it and they’ve got to carry their well-being of survival," Brown said. "They’ve got rent, they got families, they got to pay their mortgages and their car notes. So, what do you do? You get up and you go to work, and you deal with it.”

It's a dilemma that contributes to the problem. The noted theologian Timothy Keller illustrates the challenge of perceptions in his writing about marriage: if one spouse thinks there is not a communication problem but the other does, there is a communication problem.

In KPD, enough officers have firsthand experience with racism being tolerated. The lengthy investigation into red flags raised by officers on the violence reduction team shows how commanders put more effort into silencing the complaints as they do correcting the underlying issue.

Following Keller's line of thinking, in other words, if one group of officers thinks there is a racism problem, there is a racism problem.

Knox News spoke extensively with six current or former officers about their experiences, including in some cases with the violence reduction team, a plainclothes special unit that deals with "the worst of the worst," as one officer explains. Knox News is not naming most of the officers because they are not authorized to speak about the investigation of the violence reduction team, they fear retribution, or both.

According to an investigation that began June 18, 2020, Adam Broome, a white Knoxville police officer, told Black officer DionDré Jackson in April 2019 that “he should know about being on a slave ship” and that reparations for “you all” (Black Americans) are “bulls---.”

Broome and Jackson were inside KPD headquarters at the time, and several white officers overheard Broome.

Reparations are the idea that Black Americans, particularly, those who are descendants of enslaved people, should receive compensation for the wrongs done to their ancestors. Reparations are not the same concept as payments made to compensate for property loss during urban removal or civil awards for illegal voting rights restrictions. 

Jackson later told investigators the comment was not a joke, and that racism is no joke.  

“Those slave (ships) were ships with four-foot-ceilings, (with people) urinating, defecating on their self ... a hundred people packed in one room, slaves getting thrown overboard, shackled, drowning, raped, beat, humiliated. That’s not a joke.” 

Broome and Jackson both served on the 10-person violence reduction team, which targeted gangs and violent offenders. Jackson was the lone Black officer on the team. The team has since been folded into the larger organized crime unit. 

Weeks after Broome's comments, three white officers on the team who heard Broome make the racist comments joined Jackson to tell their supervisor, Sgt. James Lockmiller, what had happened. Lockmiller, according to the report, did not do anything with the information. 

Previously, the four had told Lockmiller more than 10 times that Broome was threatening and erratic, but Lockmiller dismissed the complaints, saying it was “just Broome being Broome.”  

Lockmiller later told investigators he felt his hands were tied and that he thought he could mitigate issues while the unit’s supervisor, Lt. Lance Earlywine, was out on paid leave. He also said the four officers originally told him they had worked it out among themselves, and they would just stop interacting with Broome altogether. He also said they had begun to joke about Broome’s demeanor.  

He told investigators he thought the problem was fixed. 

“I couldn’t just transfer him (Broome), he hadn’t done anything,” he said. “Interpersonal issues are not justification for calling somebody down for something that’s otherwise normal.”  

Some time later, after no action was taken and after Broome and Jackson had a heated argument in KPD’s parking lot in front of more than a dozen officers, Jackson asked for a meeting with Lockmiller and Lockmiller’s superior, Earlywine. At the meeting, according to the report, Jackson told the men Broome continued to create a hostile work environment. Earlywine, hearing the concern for the first time, reported it to his supervisor, Capt. Don Jones.  

It was here, according to the investigation, that Jones and Deputy Chief Kenny Miller — one of the highest-ranking KPD members  — met with Jackson. Jones persuaded Jackson not to file a report with internal affairs, Jackson told investigators. Specifically, he said Jones “passively discouraged” him from going to internal affairs. He obliged. 

“(They said) ‘We can’t tell you not to go to internal ffairs, I’m not telling you don’t go, but these are the reasons why you don’t wanna go ... the media all in our business, PARC (the city’s Police Advisory and Review Committee) will have the information ... it’s accessible in public records to anybody,’” Jackson recounted to investigators.

“’We can handle this in-house without everybody else getting in our business.” 

Jones later told investigators Jackson was vague about what Broome had said and that he thought it was more about Broome generally picking on other officers. This contradicts Jackson’s recounting of the conversation. Jackson told investigators he specifically told Jones and Miller that Broome was a racist and said other officers would say the same. 

After supervisors met with Jackson, Jones met with the entire unit. Multiple officers told investigators that Jones began the meeting by saying “back in the days of (ROPE, Repeat Offender Prevention and Enforcement), (they) had shirts with nooses on it; that s--- would not fly this day and age.”  

Jackson called the meeting a “Band-Aid” to the problem. Another officer called the talk a “kumbaya meeting” that didn’t fix anything. 

Broome was later moved across the hall to another office with a handful of other officers who formed a new team devoted to gun investigations, but he remained part of the violence reduction unit.

It took a resignation to unearth Broome's "slave ship" comments.

Officer Blake Morgan, one of the four who complained about it at the time, wrote about the incident in his exit interview last summer. He demanded an internal affairs investigation into the incident and Broome’s ongoing behavior, which included, he said, creating a hostile workplace environment. He didn’t go to internal affairs originally, Morgan said later to investigators, because he “trusted in my chain of command.”

“I loved being a Knoxville police officer,” Morgan wrote in his exit interview. “I was dedicated and gave the job and city my all every single day. I will not, however, work for an organization that condones racism, harassment and a hostile work environment and covers it up.” 

Lockmiller later told investigators that Morgan was an instigator and was “slinging mud” from thousands of miles away after leaving KPD for a job in Arizona. 

A year after Broome made the comments, he was one of five officers named Officer of the Month for April 2020 for his “relentless efforts” in arresting an alleged violent criminal. Earlywine nominated him for the award.  

“Yeah, I did. I know how it sounds,” Earlywine told Knox News recently about nominating Broome. “To this day, I do not know what Broome allegedly said. My contention was you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty and he had put in a ton of effort, above and beyond in a particular case, so I put him in (for) officer of the month for that particular case.” 

“What kind of message does that send to other officers?” a current KPD officer asked Knox News.

Earlywine may not have seen the investigative file, but he had been told about Broome’s comments by Jackson a year earlier. It was another few months before the city announced the award recipients on July 30. By that point, Morgan had submitted his written exit interview and internal affairs had begun an investigation.

Broome resigned in late July 2020, two days before the awards were announced and before he could be interviewed by internal affairs. According to the investigative file, Broome had been contacted by internal affairs the week prior to his resignation and told about the complaint.  

Knox News spoke to Broome last November. He said he is a man of integrity and that the four officers who had complained about him always had a problem with him. 

He resigned, he said, not because of the pending investigation into his comments but because he found another job.  

“There’s a lot of issues at KPD, there’s a lot of divisiveness at KPD and if you can’t trust the guy you’re working next to whenever they make baseless claims like this, then what’s the point of sticking around?” he said. “I very much loved my job. I was proud to be a policeman. I was proud to serve the city.” 

Days after the original call, Broome called reporter Tyler Whetstone unannounced. Of all the good things he’s done for the department, he said, this is what will make news.  

“If I was so bad why was I still in the unit? Why didn’t they ask for a transfer? Why was I not transferred? How am I getting officer of the month?” he asked. 

When asked for comment again last week, he declined to speak about the investigation, saying a reporter would just write what he wants to write. 

In March 2020, Kincannon and Thomas announced in a joint press conference the end of a monthslong internal police investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. 

The allegations came to light in the summer of 2019 through Knox News reporting about a series of corroborated audio and video recordings detailing lewd behavior by officers and laid out in an internal complaint by Lt. Travis Brasfield, who asserted top police officials tried to sweep misconduct under the rug.

In all, Knox News published 15 stories about police misconduct and the investigation from July 2019 to March 2020. 

As part of the fallout of the investigation, Deputy Chief Kenny Miller was given a written reprimand for failing to document to internal affairs his handling of a complaint that alleged an officer engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship. 

After reporting about a video taken at roll call that showed Sgt. Bob Maxwell drawing stick figures on a white board depicting a woman performing oral sex on a man, Knox News reported that Miller downplayed and didn’t investigate it. 

Later, he expressed concern that someone may “go to the damn Sentinel and WBIR” with copies of the video. 

Brasfield was reassigned by Thomas to a job at a desk outside her office with no computer and no real duties. He quit soon after.

In the racist comments case, command staff helped smother the complaint about Broome for nearly a year until Morgan’s exit interview in June 2020. KPD then kept the investigation open for nearly a year.

For his part, Miller told investigators he doesn’t recall meeting with Jackson and Jones. He said he was under the impression that the officers were not getting along. He was not aware of it having a “racial component” to it. 

When the city announced the discipline that came as a result of the investigation into Brasfield’s complaint, Kincannon said the city is committed to a path that allows police employees to report misconduct. "We stand here to tell you that no one, no matter the rank, is above the law," she said.  

The department received the racism complaint and began investigating a few months later and began a nearly yearlong investigation. It has not yet released any details about its plans for action.

Sam Brown was one of only 10 or so Black officers when he joined KPD in 1990. Twenty-seven years later when he retired, the number of Black officers had barely increased. Today, there are 19 Black officers, according to PARC.

KPD is one of the whitest departments in the nation. A recent ABC News investigation found that in 99 of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, the percentage of police officers of color at police departments is smaller than the percentage of people of color in the communities they serve. Knoxville’s metro area was listed in the data and is not an outlier. 

KPD is authorized to have 416 officers, but hasn’t had more than 400 in at least a decade, Thomas told the City Council during the budgeting process this spring. Of the roughly 375 officers, only 19 are Black, or just 5 percent, according to PARC. The city’s Black population is 17%, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates from July 2019. 

Brown told Knox News last week the department has a lot of good people in it and he would never say everyone is racist, but there are issues that need to be addressed, starting with the number of Black officers in leadership roles. Currently there are two: Deputy Chief Ron Green and Lt. Stan Cash.

“My thing is if you’re running a police department in our society today and you don’t understand the fact that most of your crime comes from East Knoxville ... to me it would be obvious that there would be Black leadership at KPD in every level of the building. Sergeants, lieutenants, captains and chiefs.  

“You know, for years when the administration (of KPD) met, they didn’t have any Black representation in there,” he continued. “I mean, it was all white people in the meetings. We didn’t have a voice in there.”

Those words were echoed by Nate Allen, the city’s first Black deputy chief. He was the highest-ranking Black officer in the department’s history when he retired after 30 years in 2016 to become the chief of police in Decatur, Alabama. 

Allen told Knox News that Knoxville’s lack of diversity in the command structure (which he defined as captains and above, excluding someone like Lt. Cash) “should be writing on the wall” that there is an issue.

The lack of diversity should create an opportunity to have conversations about race, something, he said, that was often discussed when he was at KPD. Those conversations, however, didn’t go anywhere, he said. And nothing has changed.

“I think KPD has a problem with communication, and you have a culture of difference between Blacks and whites,” Allen said. “Is there racism problems or cultural differences? It only becomes a problem if you don't recognize it and try to make adjustments for it."

KPD, Allen said, recognized the problems but didn't solve them.

Four current officers told Knox News the department has a problem with racism, with one saying if the racial climate in the country wasn’t heightened at the moment, the department wouldn’t have looked into the allegations against Broome, or at least would not have acted on them. 

“I think the only reason they’re (following protocol) now is because they know their hands are tied and they know that with the climate in the country now if it comes out that something racist has been going on and nothing’s been done about it, then that’s going to be really bad on us,” one officer told Knox News last fall. 

Another said it was more complicated than that. There is racism baked into American society and it permeates everything, including the department.

“I don’t think there’s anymore of a ‘culture problem’ at KPD than there is a ‘culture problem’ in our country,” they said. “We are a reflection of our environment. Whatever is wrong with KPD is what’s wrong with Knoxville. Whatever is wrong with Knoxville is what’s wrong with America.” 

What matters, the officers said, was whether you do everything in your power to make it better. Some days, they said, KPD does that and some days KPD doesn’t.

The department's issues are a matter of perspective, Allen said, but KPD could benefit from growing pains when it decides how to deal with racism.

To that end, he said, there were times when officers under his command didn't follow his commands or tried to scheme against him with other supervisors in order to question his authority as a Black leader. There were times his education was questioned or checked as people wanted to make sure he was qualified for the role and not promoted because he was Black. 

“How do we correct it? I think the way to correct those is to have a conversation with the minority population that you have there and ask tough questions (about) how do we improve and how do we get there? And then add those recommendations," Allen said.

Brown said having a minority-only recruiting class would be a start. 

Broome aside, multiple officers told Knox News that KPD doesn’t have an issue with overt racism. Black officers are just treated differently, they said.  

Some officers say Black members have to compete amongst themselves for promotions because historically only one Black officer will be selected if multiple positions are open. It’s “cutthroat,” one said. So, one officer said, Black officers have previously strategized about who puts in for what promotion, taking turns to better their chances. Both Brown and Allen said they were not aware of such practices when they were at KPD.

Knox News first learned about the allegations against Broome last fall when it was reported that KPD officers Leah Miller and Todd MacFaun dressed one of MacFaun’s children in blackface for a Halloween costume. Miller later resigned and MacFaun was given a written reprimand and was to receive additional cultural bias training.  

Following the conclusion of the investigation into the two, Thomas said she was “disappointed in the severe lapse in judgment” shown by the officers and said blackface should “deeply offend us all.” 

“Though their actions were done only in the spirit of Halloween, those actions were hurtful and insensitive,” she said. “I will not tolerate, accept or condone offensive or racially insensitive behavior of any kind.” 

Both Broome and MacFaun served on KPD’s violence reduction team at the time of the complaint filed against Broome. The two are close, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the two’s interactions, both inside and outside of KPD. 

The team, according to multiple people interviewed, was a demanding unit that consistently worked long hours and took on hard tasks.

“Most of those individuals (the unit dealt with) were involved in gun violence and carried handguns,” one said. “So obviously you have to trust that the person beside you is making the best judgment call ... you can’t have any doubt or any question that they’re going to back you up if things go bad.” 

That same officer told Knox News that KPD’s culture rewards certain kinds of people over others. “If you’re in the in, then they see no problem with you. But if you’re one of the outside guys ... then you kind of get s--- on.” 

Not everyone thinks KPD has a culture of racism. Two white officers who have interacted with the violence reduction team told Knox News it is a case of a few bad actors, though, one allowed, different people could have different experiences. Half a dozen officers told investigators they never saw Broome create a hostile work environment or make racist comments. 

One of those officers, Jordan Henderson, didn't mind speaking publicly. He was a member of the team and was one of the three officers who, with Jackson, told Sgt. Lockmiller about Broome’s comments. He said the department’s image shouldn’t be based on a single person or incident because culture is bigger than one person.  

“Can I say that I personally agree with the decisions that were made by Capt. Jones? No, I can’t say that I probably agree with it just from my understanding of it,” he said. “I don’t think the steps that were taken were beneficial ...”  

But, he said, from what he’s seen working at KPD the past seven years, he’s not seen anybody treated unfairly or decisions made because of race.

So did the department downplay Broome's racist comments because it has a problem with racism itself?

“I don't think that would be an accurate portrayal of what happened,” he said. “Now, could they have probably responded better to the situation and handled it better? Yeah, I don't disagree with you on that.” 

The only person punished for their role in covering up Broome's racist comments is Sgt. Lockmiller, who received a one-day suspension without pay for failure to report allegations of harassment and a hostile work environment. Lockmiller declined to comment for this story, telling Knox News to speak to his attorney.  

Broome resigned July 31, days after he was first told he would be interviewed about the "slave ship" incident.

Two of the officers apart of the violence reduction team, David Gerlach and Blake Morgan, no longer work as Knoxville police officers.

The violence reduction team was folded into the larger organized crime unit last fall. Jackson is still the unit’s only Black officer. 

Lockmiller and Earlywine command the unit.”

https://www.knoxnews.com/in-depth/news/local/2021/06/17/knoxville-police-department-cover-up-officers-racist-comments/7684667002/