The Associated Press
(AP) TEMPE, Ariz.- City leaders have apologized after a program on Tempe’s cable channel showed a white police officer telling two black men they could get out of a littering ticket by performing a rap.
Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman and police Chief Tom Ryff apologized for the show Thursday and suspended its future production after black community leaders voiced outrage and disappointment over it.
The segment appeared on “Tempe StreetBeat,” a program produced by police in the Phoenix suburb that followed several officers on patrol. It shows Sgt. Chuck Schoville pulling over two men in August in a mall parking lot.
He first asks for a name and ID from the driver and then asks the two men if they knew how much the fine is for littering.
The officer then tells the men that they can avoid getting a littering ticket “if the two of you just do a little rap about _ what do you want to do a rap about? Littering? About the dangers of littering.”
The two men agree and each perform a short rap, laughing afterward.
Leaders of chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Action Network expressed outrage over the segment and demanded that the city take action.
A message left with the police department seeking comment from Schoville was not immediately returned Friday. Because the men in the video were not cited, Tempe police had no record of their names.