Students at a Tampa Bay middle school are rallying in support of a black resource officer who was fired for using the N-word on duty.
“We feel that nothing Officer White said jeopardized the trust he has established in our community,” reads a petition supporting Delvin White, who was fired after using the racial slur on duty. “The students at Middleton High School love Officer White and we know he feels the same based on his actions.”
White, a black school resource officer, was fired by Tampa Bay Police Chief Brian Dugan after body camera video surfaced of White using a racial slur in multiple incidents.
During what was a routine review of body camera footage, the department stumbled upon a video that White evidently made by mistake. The video shows White driving home after a football game on campus, where he can be heard using the N-word while talking to his wife on the phone.
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“Every day I go to work, and not one kid gets shot or stabbed, that means I done my job,” White says during the conversation with his wife. “That’s a lot of responsibility. You don’t have all that responsibility. … Well, some would say you have more responsibility. You manage a multimillion-dollar property, or just some ghetto n—a doesn’t get shot or stabbed.”
When confronted with the footage by a supervisor, White also admitted to having previously used the word while arresting a combative student that had been suspended from school.
Body camera footage of that arrest shows White confronting the 16-year-old student who had returned to campus to pick up his brother, warning the student multiple times to leave campus or he will have to be arrested. When the student doesn’t comply with White’s commands, White can be seen placing the student under arrest.
“You goin’ to jail now, n—a,” White says while taking the student to the patrol vehicle while telling the student to keep his hands behind his back.
“Man, make me bro, you trippin’,” the student responds.
“I told you, n—a, we ain’t playin’ with your ass,” White says before pinning the student to a fence and placing him in cuffs.
“You trippin,’” the student says again.
“N—a, you trippin,’” White responds.
“You don’t know what a n—a be goin’ through,” the student replies while being placed in the patrol vehicle.
White insisted to supervisors that he didn’t mean for the word to be used in an offensive or derogatory manner, noting that the word is “commonly used in today’s society as a means of shared culture and experiences among the African American community.”
But Dugan said he is forced to treat White like he would any white police officers under his command.
“People need to understand I can’t fire a white officer and not fire a black officer for saying that,” Dugan said. “If you’re going to go for restorative punishment for him, you have to do it for everyone in the future, no matter what color they are. The policy is pretty clear that unless there are mitigating circumstances, you’re going to get terminated if you talk like that.”
“My stance,” Dugan continued, “has to be color blind.”
But many of the students and teachers who know White don’t see it that way, with many insisting he should have simply been punished instead of losing his job.
“He shouldn’t have used it,” said J’Lyn Green, a 16-year-old student, “but the punishment shouldn’t have gone that far.”
Yvette Lewis, president of the local NAACP, agrees, arguing that a black person using the word is different than a white person using it.
Lewis has received “a ton of calls” supporting White, saying people see his firing as a double-standard.
“Black folks are looking at this like, white police officers have done us wrong, shot us dead in the street, they have mistreated us and still have their job, so why would you want to fire this man for saying a word?” Lewis said. “That’s what I’m hearing.”
Green’s mother, Lavetta Sexil, said she interacted with White when her son was at the middle school.
“He treats them like they’re his very own kids,” Sexil said. “When J’Lyn went to high school, we had an issue where we thought he was skipping. Officer White kept a close eye on him, and if he wasn’t in class, he would let me know. We need officers like officer White in our community.”
Kim Moore, who previously served as principal at the school and worked with White, said students there live in a part of the city “that has felt the brunt of police actions that are not always viewed as being appropriate or exercised at the same level as they would be in other communities.”
“So our students were defensive,” Moore said. “They didn’t always trust, and so sometimes those interactions can be difficult. Good SROs build relationships with students, so when they have to interact with students, it’s from a position of, ‘I care for you. I’m here for you. I’m not here to harm you, and I want to avoid having you enter the system.’ And I believe officer White did that.”
White also has the support of some of the school’s teachers, with math teacher Kristina Ravenel arguing White didn’t use the word in the same context as a racial slur.
“Every student I’ve spoken to in my class or on the softball team feel like he shouldn’t have been fired,” Ravenel said.
White has created a GoFundMe page to help with expenses while he’s not getting paid and still insists he meant nothing derogatory with his use of the word.
“To be clear I do not condone racism in any manner, but my words were taken out of context,” White wrote on the GoFundMe page. “None of the parties involved in the incident remember the use of the word, took offense or filed a complaint. The word was said in a familiar manner as a way to relate to one another.”
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White said that he is “amazed by the support” he has received from the community, adding that he just wants his job back so he can “continue my work in the community.”
