Three cops fired after accidental dashcam activation captures racist rants

Enlarge / Members of the Wilmington, North Carolina, police force taking part in the city's annual Azalea Festival parade in April 2019. (credit: Roberto Galan | Getty Images)

Three North Carolina police officers were fired from their jobs this week after investigators found incredibly racist, troubling conversations, and threats of violence accidentally recorded by the cops' own dashboard camera.

The dashboard camera in Officer Kevin Piner's patrol car captured more than 46 minutes of relevant footage from a two-hour recording, Wilmington Police Chief Donny Williams said Wednesday.

According to the department's report (PDF), Piner's camera was recording due to "accidental activation." That activation ended up capturing Piner and two other officers, Jessie Moore and Brian Gilmore-all white-discussing Black members of the force as well as local protesters, using well-known racist slurs. At one point, Moore said a local magistrate, a Black woman, "needed a bullet in her head," before the three discussed their feelings that a civil war was coming, for which all three claimed to be ready. "We are just gonna go out and start slaughtering them fucking n------s," Piner added.

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