A police officer in Ferguson who was captured on video pushing CNN’s Don Lemon, a black television host, during live coverage of protests this week in Ferguson, Mo., has been suspended from duty after video of an hour-long racial rant against minority groups, women, liberals and politicians emerged online.
St. Louis County Police Officer Dan Page spewed the vile, strange and extreme rhetoric during an Oath Keepers of St. Louis/St. Charles meeting in April, just months before he was tasked with keeping order among a crowd of majority black protesters in Ferguson, Mo.
Page’s first words to CNN’s Lemon during the continued demonstrations were: “Move out of the way, sir. Move!”
“We’re on national television, so imagine what they’re doing to people when you don’t see it on national television, people who don’t have a voice like we do,” Lemon says as he’s pushed around by Page.
Page was subsequently pushed out the door Friday without pay in response to his all-ethnic, sexist and xenophobic diatribe against hate-crime legislation, the “four sodomites on the Supreme Court,” women and Muslims.
“You’re either gonna go to the ballot box or the bullet box in the next 18 months,” he demands as he decries Missouri’s two Senators.
“Roy Blunt (Republican) and Claire McCaskill (Democrat) won’t even talk to me, they say, ‘you’re an extremist’ and I say, ‘amen!’” the cop raves on video. “And I’m real good with a rifle. My best shot is 1,875 meters, I got me a gold star on that one. You run from me, you’re gonna die tired.”
The disturbing comments, from a police officer no less, continue on to discuss “an undocumented president” from Kenya and his “killer instinct.”
Page’s take on domestic violence is startling: “If you don’t like each other that much, just kill each other and get it over with,” he opines. “Problem solved, get it done. Don’t be wasting cops’ time, just shoot each other and get it over with, that’s how I feel about it.”
The St. Louis County police chief, Jon Belmar, distanced the department from the hate speech Friday and suspended the outspoken officer.
“He doesn’t represent the rank and file of the St. Louis County Police Department,” Belmar explained to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Page’s suspension was just the latest in a line of law enforcement officers who have gotten themselves in trouble by making controversial comments about the Ferguson unrest.
- An officer in Glendale, a St. Louis suburb, was suspended Friday as well. Officer Matthew Pappert allegedly posted that he thinks the demonstrators are “a burden on society and a blight on the community” while writing that the “protesters should have been put down like rabid dogs the first night.” In a statement, the Glendale police chief wrote Pappert was “immediately suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation.”
- On Wednesday, an officer from suburban St. Ann was suspended after threatening to kill a group of protesters and media members. Officer Ray Alberts was aiming his semi-automatic assault rifle at the group as he told one his name was “go f— yourself.”
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