Global Courant
A Georgia police station is under investigation after it used an image of a black man as a target during a gun safety lesson for civilians and posted pictures of it on social media.
The police department in Villa Rica, about 33 miles west of Atlanta, held the event on Saturday and posted photos of participants pointing their guns at targets with a life-sized photograph of a black man on its Facebook page. The man on the targets is pointing a gun and wearing a beanie.
The photos have since been pulled from the Facebook page, but screenshots have been widely shared and criticized on social media.
Villa Rica police responded to the backlash in a Facebook post on Wednesday, stating, “It was never our intention to be insensitive, inflammatory or offensive to anyone.” The department also said it respects the “honest opinion of our fellow citizens” and apologized for “any offense we may have caused”.
Georgia’s Villa Rica police are facing backlash after hosting a handgun class over the weekend with a target depicting a beanied black man pointing a gun.Villa Rica Police via WXIA
police chief of Villa Rica, Michael Mansour, said the targets depicting black men are used statewide for training and that the department also used other targets depicting white and Asian individuals during class. The officer posting the photos, who refused to identify Mansour, mistakenly posted only photos of the black targets used.
“It’s just an innocent mistake, but it was a mistake,” Mansour told NBC News. “And I’m very transparent when I say we screwed up. But I will never accept people telling me I’m a racist, or that our department is a racist because we made a mistake.”
NBC News reviewed photos of targets with images of white people that Mansour said were used in class.
Mayor Gil McDougal of Villa Rica told De Telegraaf on Wednesday that he was “personally embarrassed” by the photos, saying the “incident does not reflect the values of this community.” McDougal has launched an investigation into the department.
The NAACP of Carroll County, where Villa Rica is located, sent an open letter to the department’s chief officer on Wednesday, calling the target “extremely abusive.” The group also requested a meeting with city leaders to discuss the incident.
“These types of targets have been used by other police departments in the US and were deemed racially inappropriate and unacceptable,” wrote Dominique Conteh, president of NAACP Carroll County. Mansour said he plans to meet with Conteh and McDougal next week to discuss the incident.
This isn’t the first time police departments have faced backlash over targeting black people. A police station in Michigan conducted a legal review last year after photos surfaced showing pictures of black men being targeted.
