Wilmington, NC (WBAP/KLIF) – Three Wilmington, North Carolina, police officers have been fired after they were heard on video spewing “hate-filled speech” and referring “to Black people as the n-word,” Police Chief Donny Williams said Wednesday.
The officers were identified as Officer James Gilmore, Corporal Jesse Moore II and Officer Kevin Piner. According to a report that details the findings of an internal investigation, Piner and Moore also criticized Williams, who is Black. Piner and Gilmore criticized other Black police officers in the department.
At one point, according to the report, Officer Piner said he was “ready” for a civil war and talked about “slaughtering” Black people, referring to them by using the n-word, “I can’t wait, God, I can’t wait,” he said.
“We are just going to go out and start slaughtering them n*****s. I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.”
– Wilmington, NC police officer Kevin Piner, who was fired along with Corporal Jessie Moore and officer Brian Gilmore for racist remarks.https://t.co/uTxoyYPvWJ
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 25, 2020
Each officer was a veteran of the department, having been hired in the late 1990s, according to employment records released by the city.
In a statement Wednesday, Williams said the Wilmington officers’ comments were “brutally offensive and deserved immediate action.”
“This is the most exceptional and difficult case I have encountered in my career,” Williams said. “We must establish new reforms for policing here at home and throughout this country.”
Williams said he has recommended that none of the three officers be eligible for rehiring in Wilmington.
The firing of the officers in Wilmington — a coastal city about 80 miles north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — comes amid a nationwide reckoning over race and policing following the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.
