Editor's Note: This story has been updated thoroughout to reflect official uncertainity over who made the radio transmissions.
CHICAGO — An unidentified man referred to a Chicago police dispatcher and another officer as “typical f**king n**gers” over a public police radio channel early Saturday, and now the men who forced the city to release the Laquan McDonald dashcam video are demanding the source of the transmission be identified, and if a police officer, be fired immediately.
When the unnamed officer thought he had been summoned by the black dispatcher, she responded, somewhat sarcastically, “No, boo, it’s too early to be bothering you. Good morning.”
A black officer shot back, jokingly asking the dispatcher how many boyfriends she had.
“Why you all up in my Kool-Aid?” she replied.
“Typical f**king n**gers,” the unknown person said.
“All right, you know, OK,” the dispatcher said before an officer directed her to “find out what radio that came from.”
“You know, we don’t get radio numbers but I’m already hollering for my supervisor,” the dispatcher says.
“All black lives matter, man,” came the reply from what might have been another man. “F**kin’ n**gers.”
Will Calloway, who helped to secure the release of the dashcam video showing the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, was enraged when he heard the exchange on Monday morning. Calloway held a press conference Monday afternoon demanding the officer who allegedly used the term be fired.
On Tuesday, the city's Office of Emergency Management Communications said it was investigating whether someone hacked into a police radio. Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Daily Beast that OEMC is leading the investigation, and that the department had "no evidence that it was an officer yet."
The Chicago Police Department is already under investigation by the Department of Justice for alleged racial bias and targeting minorities in street stops, as well as excessive use of force. The investigation was opened as protests raged against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration for covering up the full extent of McDonald’s death.
“This is ridiculous,” Calloway said of the racist officer spouting off publicly just months after Emanuel promised reform and even sacked former police superintendent Garry McCarthy as well as the head of the Independent Police Review Agency, Scott Ando.
“We want him gone,” Calloway said.
That isn’t up to Mayor Emanuel but rather the new head of the IPRA, Sharon Fairley. whose agency would have to investigate the officer and then decide whether firing is appropriate. IPRA has rarely chosen to make such a recommendation, and last did so in the case of an officer who killed an unarmed black woman in 2013.
McCarthy did not fire that officer until the day a judge ordered the release of the video showing McDonald’s killing at the hands of police.