The St. Louis County police dispatcher heard using a racial slur on the police radio Jan. 9 is no longer an employee with the department.
Sgt. Benjamin Granda confirmed the dispatcher’s last day was Tuesday — one day short of the dispatcher’s 17th anniversary with the department. He was hired Jan. 20, 2004.
It was not clear if he resigned or was fired.
The police department is not releasing the employee’s name, however the St. Louis Post-Dispatch identified him as Mark Peeler, the brother-in-law of St. Louis County Police Chief Mary Barton.
When asked, Granda said the dispatcher’s pension and other benefits were “not within the department’s purview.”
On Jan. 13,Millicent Williams sued St. Louis County for refusing to produce the police dispatch recording of the employee using the racial slur.
“Governments can’t hide embarrassing open records behind the ‘personnel records’ exception,” civil rights attorney Mark Pedroli wrote on Twitter, announcing the suit.
Within five hours of filing, Pedroli released the recording on Twitter.
“The County should be commended for swift action, but we still need to talk about abusing the personnel exception to close inherently open records,” he wrote in another tweet.
The 30-minute recording can be heard online at https://bit.ly/39TtiKE. Approximately 19 minutes and 18 seconds into the recording a man can be heard whispering the f-word followed by the plural form of the n-word.
It is not apparent to whom he is referring in the recording. Previous reports indicated the offensive language was in reference to department employees.
The Ethical Society of Police is an association of more than 300 police officers, park rangers and civilians that advocates for racial and gender equity in law enforcement. On Friday, the organization released a statement regarding the dispatcher’s departure
“The announcement of the departure of St. Louis County Police dispatcher and brother-in-law of Chief Mary Barton tells us exactly what we need to know about the lack of leadership at SLCPD,” ESOP wrote. “At no point did Chief Mary Barton decide to address her department or the public about one of her employees using the disgusting language over the police radio.
The police group demanded an apology and explanation from Barton to both the department’s employees and the public. They believe the dispatcher should have been let go before Tuesday.
“This was another opportunity for SLCPD to display some type of leadership when addressing racism to their department and the public and they failed, again,” ESOP wrote.