TEXAS POLICE CHIEF REFUSES TO HIRE "GOOKS"

Farmers Branch, Texas (a Dallas suburb) Police Chief Jimmy Fawcett has been suspended for ten days and required to undergo ten days of counseling, because of remarks he made to the City Council about an applicant to the police department. The man, who had just graduated from the police academy, was Vietnamese. Fawcett reportedly said, "As long as I'm chief, we won't have any gooks working in the Farmers Branch police department."

Fawcett is a Vietnam vet.

Conservative KLIF radio show talk host Greg Knapp has called for the resignation or firing of the chief, and he's right. The Farmers Branch police department has never hired an Asian officer, and other officers have been fired in the past for racially insensitive remarks. So why not the chief? The implications of his remarks are many, including offering substance for future lawsuits against the city and a loss of confidence in the police department by the substantial Asian-American community. In addition, Dallas and its suburbs are having a hard time staffing their police departments. It is absurd, aside from the repulsive nature of the chief's racist attitude, to exclude an entire section of the community from filling those posts, and as one of Knapp's listeners pointed out, it endangers the community and the other officers.

Defenders of the chief point out that his wife of three decades is Japanese, and his children are Japanese/American, thus proving that he is not prejudiced against Asians. On the contrary, I would think that his remarks would deeply shame them.

The chief, who is Vice President of the International Chiefs of Police, expects to accede to the presidency in the next few years.

The Farmer Branch city manager and council have no other reasonable choice: the chief must go.