After surveillance video White Ohio Police Chief leaving a note of “Ku Klux Klan” on a black policeman’s raincoat He made national news, but the identity of the officer remained a mystery.
On Thursday, Sheffield Lake police officer Keyspool came out earlier to claim details of the June incident that resulted in the expulsion of his former boss and other encounters he described as “sneaky.” I did.
Video acquired in the summer Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYCCaptured at the time-Police Chief Anthony Campo stood on the department’s copier and placed a printout of the clan on the court. The KKK was a secret society organized in the South to claim white supremacism after the Civil War and often used violence.
Poole said in an interview this week that when he returned to his desk, Campo told other police officers (all white) to come and see the sign.
“It wasn’t fun for them,” Poole, 57 said. “They then went away.”
But Campo didn’t stop there, according to Poole and his lawyer, who filed a proceeding on Thursday.
Poole claimed that Campo made a KKK-style hat out of paper and told him he had to wear it on the next phone call.
“It was very mean. It was very rude to me,” he said.
Poole was planning to report an incident he knew was recorded in an office surveillance video, but a representative of the union beat him.
He said he was the first black officer to work for the agency, which has about 14 officers, and was targeted by Campo in less than a year in the ministry.
“No African-Americans were applying for it,” Poole said.
The first incident happened before he started working last year.
Instead of sending a photo of a new police car to the pool, he said he sent a photo of a car on a 20-inch rim with colored windows.
“It was written as’Officer Pool, SRO’,” said Poole, a 19-year police officer and former school resource officer.
He added: What is he talking about? What does this mean? Still, the pool has joined the department.
Around Halloween, Campo again targeted him and fixed a photo of the Grim Reaper on the bulletin board, he said. The face of the pool is inserted in the photo and below it is written “Raccoon reaper”.
“I didn’t understand that either,” he said.
Poole claimed that the two were sitting in a police car when Campo approached them with yet another “colored window” statement after a second black police officer joined the department.
“‘It looked like all the windows were colored,'” Poole quoted Campo. “The window was open.”
Poole added that Campo was obsessed with pulling the driver through the colored windows. This practice has been criticized as a way to unfairly target “black driving” targets.
According to Ashley Caseslet Bold, one of Pool’s lawyers, Campo has a history of discriminating against others in the office based on gender, sexual orientation, and race.
The pool legal team Ohio Civil Rights Commission Discrimination Liability, The first step in preparing to file a proceeding.I also submitted a lawyer Petition to the State Supreme Court Force police stations to provide records that they say show patterns of race-based harassment in which Campo is involved.
“Many people knew him,” Poole said. “I didn’t do anything.”
Efforts to ask Campo for comment in July and this week were unsuccessful.
In an interview with WKYC, he previously stated that the KKK sign was intended as an off-color joke and was “exaggerated.” He added that he respects the pool.
Mr Poole said he was first brought to court by the mayor in 2019 and accused Campo of blocking him from working there.
“He told the detective,’Never do that.’ He didn’t want me there in the first place,” he said.