Defiant NH Police Commissioner Won’t Step Down After Calling Obama a ‘F-cking N-gger’

Residents of a New Hampshire town aren’t pleased that their police commissioner is an unrepentant racist, but despite calls for him to step down, he says he isn’t leaving any time soon.

In March, Wolfeboro resident Jane O’Toole was having dinner to celebrate her 8th anniversary of beating cancer when she overheard a man say he hated watching tv, because every time he turns it on, he sees “that f-cking n-gger.”

Offended, O’Toole asked him whether he was “throwing the n-word around.” The man responded that indeed he was.

The next day, staff at the restaurant told her he was actually the police commissioner of the town, Robert Copeland and that he was apparently referring to President Obama. O’Toole says she didn’t plan on doing anything about the comments until she learned who that man was and what kind of power he had in the town.

“I vote, I’ve always voted, but I have no desire to run for any kind of office or get involved in politics,” O’Toole told the Concord Monitor. “I just happened to be at a restaurant at the wrong time.”

Even then, she wasn’t sure what to do, or if she should do anything at all. That is until a month later when she learned that Copeland had won reelection, having run unopposed.

“At that point, it really started to bother me that this was an elected official, making these loud racist statements. But I talked to a few people in town and they said, ‘Just leave it, what good is it going to do?’ But talking to more people I knew, I got the impression this wasn’t the type of town that was going to be like that. It was going to be more supportive of me. No one sounded surprised,” O’Toole said.

After writing to several officials and getting nowhere, O’Toole finally went public, sending her letter – and Copeland’s unapologetic response – to the local Granite State News, which published both in their newspaper.

Residents were outraged and a campaign was quickly launched to call for Copeland’s resignation. Rather than deny the allegations, or better yet, apologize, Copeland told everyone he wouldn’t be stepping down, nor would he say he was sorry.

In an email written to his fellow police commissioners, Copeland acknowledges he said the n-word but felt justified in using it (emphasis mine).

“I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse,” Robert Copeland wrote. “For this, I do not apologize — he meets and exceeds my criteria for such.“

Amazingly, other local politicians have spoken up to defend Copeland, including fellow commissioner Joseph Balboni, who said Copeland was a “very nice person” and that the outrage was “crazy.”

“He’s worked with a lot of blacks in his life. . . . He said some harsh words about Mr. Obama, and here we are. This woman, she’s blowing it all out of proportion.”

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