Former LAPD Detective Caught On Camera Using Racial Slurs

LOS ANGELES, CA — Video footage of a recently retired Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective shouting racial slurs at a young Black man has sent a shockwave through hundreds of Los Angeles court cases.

District Attorney George Gascon said his office will review 370 past cases handled by the retired detective. LAPD Chief Michel Moore also issued a statement this week disavowing the former officer's comments and vowing to conduct an internal investigation.

"The individual is not a current member of the LAPD and retired in May 2020 as a detective assigned to Operations Central Bureau Homicide," Moore said. "To ensure there is no current Department nexus to this incident, there has been an internal investigation started. What is seen in the video is not reflective of the thousands of hard-working and dedicated men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department."

Cell phone footage uploaded to Twitter was recorded when an argument erupted following a car crash in Valencia. The former officer, who has not been publicly identified but appears to be white, can be heard demanding to see the younger man's driver's license. Over the noise of nearby traffic, he can also be heard uttering two racial slurs directed at the other driver, who is Black.

Addressing the person filming the encounter, the former detective said he used one of the slurs only after the other man used it first.

"You heard it from him, right? The big 'N-word' came out of him," said the former detective, after calling the younger man a "dumb" racial slur.

The other man is heard using the slur toward the former detective at least once before the video cuts off.

"The video in question is disturbing [and] involves a former homicide detective exhibiting racist tendencies," Gascon wrote on Twitter Tuesday night.

Gascon went on to say his office "is taking immediate action [and] has identified several cases where this individual was a witness. We are in the process of notifying defense attorneys in such cases."

City News Service contributed to this report.