A Tulsa Police Department sergeant has been placed on restrictive duty after he told a Citizen Police Academy class that he and his fellow officers relished "smoking" anti-police brutality protesters.
Local news station KTUL reports that Tulsa Police Department Sgt. Mike Griffin was secretly recorded while addressing the academy, where he recounted employing violence against protesters during the summer of 2020.
In a transcript of the remarks posted on Twitter by investigative reporter Dylan Goforth, Griffin argued that the protesters he encountered in Tulsa "hate this country and want it to look more like the old Soviet Union."
He then talked about tactics his department deployed to quell the protests.
"When the anti-police riots started and they hit Tulsa, this is not Oregon or Seattle," he said. "If you act [expletive] here, we will smoke your ass... and when they start breaking windows, it was beautiful. Because we're driving around going, 'Here's some, come and get 'em, SWAT boys. Like spanking a bunch of unruly kids."
Griffin added that "nothing is more dangerous to America than a liberal white person."
The Tulsa Police Department issued a statement to KTUL saying that Griffin has since been placed on restrictive duty due to expressing "several personal opinions that are not acceptable for any Tulsa Police Officer to present as representatives of the Department."
