Justin Barrett: Boston’s Finest Racist

Posted by: Tristan

There’s always one. Just when it looked that Gates-Gate was a clear example of Barack Obama being out of touch with modern law enforcement attitudes towards race, one douchebag has to come out of the woodwork and ruin the narrative.

The douchebag in this case is Officer Justin Barrett, 36, who “acted stupidly” by referring to Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a “jungle monkey” in an e-mail which found its way to the Boston Globe, members of the National Guard and finally to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who immediately demanded Barrett’s badge and gun.

“I just say that we want to rid our department of the cancer, and that is what we did — rid the department of the cancer. All the police officers I know don’t condone any of that,” Boston Mayor Tom Menino said. “An individual preaching hate has no place in our society.”

Barrett is assigned to District B-3. He was placed on administrative leave pending a termination hearing.

The officer has had a badge with the department for two years and received extensive training in racial profiling prevention while in the academy.

“People go through these courses and they pass them and you don’t know what they are going to do in a situation,” Menino said.

Barrett does have one possible defense.  The Urban Dictionary has three entries for the term “jungle monkey”.  The first two describe the term as “A racist word for a (black person or African-American)”. However, the last term is less derogatory.

Another term for a stud, player, etc. A man who swings from bush to bush with ease. Used most often in a mildly offensive manner; typically applied to men who pick up ugly women. This implies their fortune wasn’t due to their charm, but rather their hefty beer goggles or lack of self-respect/taste.

Without the full email to determine context, we may not know Barrett’s intent of the term, but it’s somewhat unlikely that he was referring to Gates’ tendency to tag  mopeds.

Nice going douchebag.  Now Obama and his race-baiting friends have a leg to stand on.