TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A Black resource officer at a Florida high school who was fired earlier this year after a random audit of his body-worn camera captured him using a racial slur multiple times was rehired Monday.
Tampa’s Civil Service Board voted 3-0 that police Chief Brian Dugan had just cause to fire Delvin White in March for using the racial slur on two separate occasions in November 2020, but that firing the beloved school resource officer at Middleton High School was too harsh a punishment, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
White will return to work Tuesday with no back pay.
Dugan testified at Monday’s hearing that White’s language was a matter of professionalism. The chief said that White shouldn’t have been using a racial slur while wearing a Tampa police uniform and speaking to a student.
White, who had been with the department for eight years, used the N-word while on the phone and directly to a student he was arresting for trespassing on Nov. 30, officials said. White was also recorded saying the word several times while talking on the phone on Nov. 13.
White acknowledged he made a mistake. He said he used the word out of frustration while talking to the student and also as a way to connect with him, but not as a slur.