A Top Cop Has Quit After He Was Outed Making Extremely Racist Online Posts
He used a pseudonym to post racist comments on YouTube.
The man in charge of Victoria Police’s ethical standards body has quit after it was revealed he had been posting extremely racist comments online using the pseudonym “Vernon Demerest”.
Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin, the head of the Professional Standards Command, resigned from Victoria Police after The Age revealed he had made numerous offensive and racist posts on social media. Last week Guerin was stood down when it emerged he had posted offensive comments about fellow police officers, including former commissioner Christine Nixon.
Many of the racist comments were posted on YouTube videos. One comment posted under a video of a Somali pirate attack said: “I’m afraid this is what happens when the lash is abolished. The jigaboo runs riot and out of control. The ‘boo needs the lash. The ‘boo wants the lash. Deep, deep down the ‘boo knows the lash provides the governance and stability.”
Exactly the normal, healthy stuff you want to see from a senior police officer in charge of the ethical standards of other police officers.
In another comment Guerin referred to Argentinian soccer players as “greasy, diving cheating dagoes”.
Guerin also wrote that women should be banned from singing the national anthem, saying: “The National Anthem must never be improvised. It must always be sung by a male. A baritone. And accompanied by a band. No argument. No opinion. Just fact”.
The Age is also reporting that Guerin made more racist comments, including comments about “third world dullards” and “Indian and Pakistani peasants”, but the paper deemed some comments “too offensive to publish”.
Guerin has now been referred to the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.
“In accordance with his obligations under the Victoria Police Act, Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton has referred a matter involving allegations against Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin to IBAC,” a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
Ashton said on ABC Radio that the comments were “out of character for Brett, the Brett that we know and work with”.
“People that know him really well are really shocked by what’s there,” he said. “I know that the people that I’ve spoken to around the force at the senior level are similarly shocked and they [the comments] in no way reflect the views held by anyone else in the senior command, I can assure you.
“We’ll be making sure we’re talking to the broader multicultural community today and making sure they know that those views in no way represent what Victoria Police is about.”