GROSS

London Cops Accused of Swapping Racist Texts About Meghan Markle

During a misconduct hearing, one of the officers tried to justify the messages, saying jokes depend on perception.

A misconduct tribunal in the U.K. has heard evidence that London Metropolitan Police officers exchanged racist messages comparing Meghan Markle to a blackface minstrel doll. If the officers are proven to have participated in or didn’t report the racist jokes, they could lose their jobs. Along with calling the former Duchess of Sussex a golliwog—a racist caricature of a Black person with frizzy hair, bulging red lips, and large eyes—the tribunal hearing heard evidence that the three officers joked about Jamaican men impregnating, kidnapping, and spreading venereal diseases to white female tourists. One of the officers also allegedly sent a photo captioned “monkey in the jungle” of a Black boy with a superimposed penis and wearing a hoodie. During the hearing, one of the officers tried to justify the messages, saying jokes depend on perception and could be considered inappropriate “if you are going to take the racial sort of side of it.”