CU Boulder Cop Fired After Racism, Antisemitism Accusations: Report

BOULDER, CO — University of Colorado police have reportedly fired an officer accused of racism and antisemitism.

As Boulder Patch previously reported, the CU Boulder police department said in April it and the university was aware of "allegations of racism, antisemitism, and unprofessional conduct by a CUPD officer."

The tweet came in response to a thread and article link by the anti-police organization Safe Access for Everyone, or SAFE, which describes itself as a group of abolitionists fighting for the rights of people experiencing homelessness.

SAFE said it found multiple posts by an officer identified as Drew Matthews that espouse "anti-homeless and anti-Black comments, including a call to attack homeless people with high pressure fire hoses."

Matthews was placed on paid administrative leave. CU officials told the Daily Camera in an email that Matthews was fired.

“CUPD is committed to professional standards and adherence to its department policies,” officials said in a statement. “After a thorough review, Chief of Police Jokerst notified Mr. Matthews that his employment was terminated because it was determined he could not effectively continue to perform his police duties for CU Boulder.”

Matthews, SAFE said, regularly posted under the account /u/BocoRam18 the Boulder and CUBoulder subreddit boards, as well as ProtectAndServe, a board for law enforcement where he verified himself with the board admins as a campus police officer. The group linked Matthews to the posts using a photo of a can of beer atop Torreys Peak that was posted both to the Reddit account and his Facebook accounts.

According to SAFE, in a screenshot of a since-deleted post from the account, the officer writes: "I say call in fire with the police and just spray the hoses at them till they leave, even if they don't they get a shower out of it. Also Seattle transients are the entitled s---heads who choose to be homeless, walking around with brand new phones and s---."

When a fellow commenter notes these were tactics that police used against Black Americans fighting for civil rights in the 1960s, the officer replies: "Hey they are getting a bath at the minimum."

In another comment, the officer writes that he and other officers broke up a house party following a report of a sexual assault and stopped "every black male there," after learning the suspect was black with an average height and build wearing a white T-shirt and jeans.

He later writes, "the best thing about this is all the guys we stopped for the most part were totally cool. It was the "white guilt/ social justice warrior' friends that caused a scene," he said, referring to people who called the police officers racist.

In other posts, SAFE accused the officer of justifying racial profiling after he defended officers who held a man at gunpoint who appeared "transient."

"Lets be honest with ourselves he contacted the dude for looking like a transient after citizens in the area requested extra patrols due to recent transient activity, not because the dude was black. That was all media and pretend outrage," the officer wrote.

In other posts, the officer describes people experiencing homelessness as "bums" and "addicts," and at one point questions whether they can be sent to Portland, SAFE alleged.

The organization also found what it called an antisemitic post by the account.

In a thread about a business's COVID-19 vaccine requirement, the officer likened private business vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.

"If people told you to wear a star on your shirt you'd do it," the officer wrote.

The University of Colorado Boulder called the posts "offensive and reprehensible.”

Matthews has been with the department for seven years.