Police sergeant: ‘Yes’ there are white supremacists on the force

A sergeant in the St. Louis Metro police department told CBS News in a new interview that she believes there are white supremacists on the force.

The network interviewed Sgt. Heather Taylor as part of its series on racial bias within police departments amid scrutiny of social media posts from officers in various cities, including St. Louis.

“Yes,” Taylor told the network when asked if she thinks there are white supremacists on the force.

“Have you seen some of the Facebook posts of some of our suspended officers right now?” she added.

{mosads}Taylor pointed to a recent report published by the Plain View Project that found thousands of racist and derogatory posts on the social media accounts of officers across the country.

The report found 22 current St. Louis police officers were responsible for some of the posts. One of the posts from a St. Louis police officer compared the Black Lives Matter movement to the KKK.

Taylor, a nearly 19-year veteran on the St. Louis police force who also serves as president of the Ethical Society of Police in the city, said she is not wary of any backlash she could face for speaking out on the issue.

“When you know you’re doing right you can hold your head up,” she said. “I don’t think that all of our department is bad. But instead of complaining about me, how about you do something to change the culture that you know exists?”

St. Louis has reportedly required all officers to take implicit bias training and de-escalation training since 2014, months after black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson.

The interview with Taylor is part of a series CBS News did focusing on implicit bias training within police departments. The news outlet contacted more than 150 police departments across the country for its series.