Over the past several months, since the murder of Deanna Cook and a couple of other cases laid bare deep-seated problems at the city's 911 call center, Dallas police have scrambled to hire dozens of new call takers to address a chronic staffing shortage that had lasted for years.
It probably shouldn't be surprising, given the haste with which the hires were made, that at least some of the new recruits are less than ideal. One of them, April Sims, was fired on Wednesday after eight months on the job.
Dallas PD made the announcement Tuesday in a very brief news release that said rather vaguely that she had violated the department's social media policy.
Did she ever. Sims' Facebook page isn't public, but The Dallas Morning News and WFAA got a hold of screenshots from her account. They don't post the screenshots, but they do post some of the choicer quotes.
For example:
I'm a very easygoing person and I will give the shirt off my back to help others, but when call after call are black people fighting and screaming and hitting each other and they want to yell at me and treat me like [expletive] (Editor's note: It's probably safe to imagine "shit" here.) when I'm trying to help, is not cool.
And:
You want to call 911 cause your boyfriend put his hand on you and you want to press charges when you don't even know his real name? Sure let's a make a police report for Dino, that is his street name.
And finally:
Black people are outrageous! They are more like animals, they never know how to act ... Always causing problems.
And lest you think that Sims' 408 Facebook friends witnessed Sims' tirade in complicit silence, at least a couple pointed out that she was being a racist asshole. But Sims was unrepentant.
I stand by every word I said. And do not apologize.The end.
Give her credit: She got that last part right.
