Records from an internal investigation revealed a former Metro Louisville Police officer suspended earlier this year for authoring offensive Facebook posts also called a Black woman a “wild animal that needs to be put down.”
The invective was just one in a series of “violent” posts written by then-officer Brian Smith, including one suggesting someone should take a microphone from Madonna and “beat her to death with it” for studying the Koran, local station WDRB reported.
“That’s a lesson in Muslin (sic) behavior for her,” he wrote.
Brian Smith was also suspended in 2009 after sending inappropriate text messages to his ex-girlfriend’s underage daughter. (Image courtesy of WDRB)
The year–long investigation into Smith’s posts unfurled after a December 2016 complaint urging the department to fire Smith for “his deep-seated bias against minority communities … Consider this post on his Facebook page about clothing choices made by mostly Black youth.”
The post in question condemned people who wear their hats to the side and sag their pants.
“You really make me want to hit u as hard as i can in the face just to see if I can fold ur teeth inside your mouth,” Smith wrote. “I’m not saying id do it, for that would be illegal, immoral, and wrong, not to mention (and most important) could get me in trouble.”
The complaint also brought up the post of Smith likening an African-American girl to an animal, linking to an article about a Black teen who allegedly “sucker punched” another girl.
“ANIMAL! Nothing but a wild animal that needs put down,” the officer wrote. “There I said it.”
According to documents obtained by WDRB, Louisville police chief Steven Conrad planned to fire Smith in January over three Facebook posts that “advocate violence against others” and “fostered mistrust of the police.” Just 10 days later, Conrad decided a month’s suspension without pay was a sufficient punishment.
The ex-officer also faced unpaid suspension in 2009 for sending inappropriate text messages to his former girlfriend’s underage daughter
Smith ultimately resigned in April, officials said.
LMPD was first alerted to the offensive posts by attorney Sam Aguiar, who is representing the family of Darnell Wicker in a wrongful death suit against the police and the city. Smith and other officers were exonerated in the August 2016 shooting and Smith was later dropped as a defendant in the case.
