Two female officers with the London Metropolitan Police Department have been dismissed from their posts after one of them was caught referring to black people as gorillas and monkeys. The racist conversation involved Special Constable Rosanna Garofalo (pictured above) and WPC Joanna Sugda (pictured below). A colleague of both women anonymously left an iPhone in a locker that recorded them laughing and making inflammatory statements about blacks while at work.
Garofalo and Sugda were changing clothes in a dressing room at the Islington Police Station in March and Garofalo was recorded saying black people “all look the f*****g same. They just all look like monkeys.” The findings of this case are revealed as the Independent Police Complaints Commission reviewed 96 complaints between April 1st and June 1st of this year.
Garofalo is appealing the decision to fire her and released the following statement: “In relation to the language used in our recorded conversation I state that it has been taken out of context. I am not a racist and still do not believe the conversation we had to have any racist connotations.” London’s mayor Boris Johnson has been an outspoken critic of racial discrimination in the city’s police department. At press time, the decision to dismiss the two female officers has been upheld.
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