http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343168,00.html
PHILADELPHIA — Two narcotics officers were demoted from an elite strike
force and suspended
without pay because of racially offensive stickers found inside a police
department locker.
Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey this week punished officers Scott
Schweizer and Eric Dial,
transferring the pair out of the Narcotics Strike Force to routine patrol
in
districts where they
started as rookies. The officers were also each suspended for 20 days
without pay and prohibited
from using vacation days toward the unpaid leave.
Two racist stickers were found inside Schweizer's locker. One sticker
read:
"White Power." The
other depicted a cartoon of a man, half as an officer in uniform and half
as
a Klansman, with the
words "Blue By Day — White By Night."
Ramsey described the discipline as harsh but just, and said he stopped
short
of firing the
officers because they "had no histories that would indicate that they
engaged in any racist type
of activities."
Schweizer's attorney, Allan J. Sagot, maintained that his client was the
victim of a practical
joke played by another officer, who affixed the stickers to the outside of
Schweizer's locker.
Once he saw the stickers, Schweizer pulled them off his locker and stuck
them inside, Sagot said.
An Internal Affairs Bureau investigation concluded that Dial created the
stickers and put them on
Schweizer's locker in the narcotics strike force headquarters in the
city's
Bridesburg section,
Ramsey said.
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