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Houston police officer Ashley Gonzalez was relieved of duty after an alleged video of her going on a racist rant about Black people went viral.
Houston Police Department (HPD) officials told KHOU that while Gonzalez is still technically an employee, she has been asked to turn in her badge and gun and will be checked on daily to ensure she does not leave her house.
She is not allowed to perform any police duties while the investigation into the video remains ongoing, and she could be fired if she is determined to indeed be the woman in the video.
In the video, the woman believed to be Gonzalez references an incident that seemingly took place while she was off duty, and she frequently repeats that she “hates Black people.”
“I f****g hate n****s. I f****g hate chimps,” she can be heard saying in the video. “Y’all don’t know how good it felt to say n****r out loud like goddamn, n****r. I felt like I was back in the Marine Corps. ... I kid you not. I don’t know what the f*** came over me. I grabbed that n****r by the neck and I was like, ‘Come here you f****g n****r,’ and oh, my God, I felt like the world just stopped. It was just peace.”
Gonzalez reportedly served in the Marines from March 2019 through March 2023, according to military officials, reaching the rank of Corporal (E4). She was not deployed during her tenure and joined the HPD in 2024, according to records from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE).
The Houston Police Officers' Union (HPOU) President Douglas Griffith issued a statement on Facebook following the video's resurfacing, saying he was "extremely disturbed" by its contents.
"In no way does the HPOU or its leadership condone or tolerate racist behavior from any of our officers," Griffith wrote.
"The Houston Police Department prides itself as being the most diverse police department in the nation, largely a product of collaborative changes to civil service law that the HPOU and the Department have made through our meet and confer process."
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