Baton Rouge officer suspended amid claims he sent racially charged image to colleagues

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A Baton Rouge police officer has been suspended amid allegations he sent a racially charged image to a group of colleagues who had been exchanging text messages about a recent protest following the decision by the U.S. Justice Department not to pursue civil-rights charges in the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling.

The officer, Blaine Dupuy, a nearly three-year-veteran of the force, was placed on administrative leave on Thursday after department brass received a written complaint about the image.

"It was definitely inappropriate," Police Chief Carl Dabadie said. "He was placed on leave the day it hit my desk. We're going to handle it the way we would anything else."

The police chief did not elaborate on the text exchange, citing an internal investigation. But a law enforcement official familiar with the matter said the image depicted a chimpanzee and the phrase "chimp out," allegedly in reference to the Sterling protesters, many of whom were black.

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The online Urban Dictionary defines "chimping out" as "when a black person removes his/her facade as a civilized human being and releases his/her inner chimp; as in to start acting violent and out of control."

Dupuy is white. The text exchange, a regular form of communication for officers on his squad, included black recipients, though it's unclear how many, the law enforcement official said.

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