Maryland police department investigating after video shows white officer using N-word

A police department in Maryland has launched an investigation this week after one of its officers, who is white, was captured on newly-emerged footage using the N-word while questioning a group of African American men in Silver Spring, The Washington Post reports.   

{mosads}Body camera footage released by the Montgomery County Police Department on Thursday shows the white officer, whose identity has not yet been released, reportedly use the racial slur while speaking to the group men outside of a local McDonalds on Thursday morning.

In the video the officer can be heard saying: “Y’all n—–s been tryin’ to something,” according to the Post. 

After one of the men called her “racist,” she then went on to say that she was just repeating the men by reportedly using the slur. “Nope, that’s a quote, that’s your words,” she says. 

According to the Post, the officers had been at the McDonald’s on Thursday to investigate possible trespassing. 

The Montgomery Police Department said in a statement seen by the Post that its office “sincerely [regrets] the disturbing nature” of the video and added that it will be looking into “all the facts and circumstances of this encounter.”

Local police chief Russ Hamill said “the language was inappropriate by any measure” in an email to employees that was seen by the Post.

He added that “such language, whether one is mimicking another person’s language, or using it on their own, simply has no place here.”