Racist police texts spark legal action and controversy in California town.

The FBI and the Contra Costa county district attorney’s office have conducted a year-long investigation into police misconduct in Antioch and neighboring Pittsburg, which has revealed that nearly half of Antioch’s 99-person police squad have been implicated in violently racist, misogynistic, and anti-gay text messages. The texts included officers bragging about beating up local residents and debasing Black people as “gorillas” and “water buffalo”. The scandal has shocked many Antioch locals, but few are surprised, as the historically white city has grown in size and diversity since the late 1950s. The revelations are a reminder of the city’s intolerant past, an indicator of the systemic undercurrent of racism in some of its crucial departments, and a signal to the work that remains to be done to achieve equity in Antioch.