Top cop claims black protesters ‘can’t take care of their own without playing race card’
A police sergeant claimed that Black people seeking social justice ‘cannot take care of their own or anyone else without playing the race card’ in a ranting email sent to the city’s mayor and reporters.
Sergeant Jeff Annunziata, the chief traffic investigator for the Erie, Pennsylvania police department, sent the email this week to the city’s Mayor, Joe Schember, and four journalists with the Erie Times-News in response to the city’s protests, which sparked nationwide outrage after a woman was seen getting kicked in the face by an Erie officer while she demonstrated.
Annunziata, a 34-year veteran of the department claimed, citizens ‘do not understand compliance’ and rambled on about conspiracies theories suggesting that the Clinton Foundation and George Soros is funding Black Lives Matter. He also pointed to the fact that an Erie officer, Richard Burchick, was killed in 1991 – emphasizing that it was a Black man who killed Burchick – in the lengthy, unhinged email sent to the Times-News.
‘Why are the facts ignored about the killing in this country and how small, the minute numbers of Police officers that kill a black man in the line of duty,’ he wrote, according to the outlet.
‘There is not one police officer that I have met around the country that seeks out controversy instead of agreement NOT ONE,’ Annunziata continued.
The sergeant’s statement comes after an Erie police officer was filmed kicking a seated woman in the face during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
On Monday, Mayor Schember announced that the officer who kicked 21-year-old Hannah Silbaugh has been suspended, but he did not identify the officer. He also announced that the city’s entire police department would undergo sensitivity training.
Schember told the Times-News that he responded to Annunziata’s email and spoke to him in person, but he did not elaborate on what he said.
MORE: Moment Erie Cop kicks George Floyd protester in the face after pepper-spraying her
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.