CU Boulder Officer On Leave Amid Racism, Antisemitism Accusations

BOULDER, CO — A University of Colorado Boulder police officer has been placed on administrative leave amid accusations of racism and antisemitism, the department tweeted Monday night.

The police department said around 9:30 p.m. Monday that it and the University of Colorado, Boulder, were 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, the group said, regularly posts 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 told the Daily Camera that Matthews was placed on paid administrative leave Monday and said in a statement, the posts were "offensive and reprehensible.”

“These allegations have been referred to the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance and to CUPD’s professional standards unit for investigation,” the university said. “Our community should know that CU Boulder and CUPD take the allegations seriously.”

Doreen Jokerst, chief of the university's police force, thanked members of the community for bringing the posts to their attention, and said it "takes allegations of this nature very seriously."

"We are taking immediate action to conduct an internal investigation," Jokerst said.

Matthews has been with the department for seven years, the Daily Camera reported.