A photo of two white Baton Rouge, La., police officers covered in dark make-up — snapped before a 1993 undercover drug sting in a predominantly black community — has the Louisiana capital city part of the nation’s reckoning of racist images, reports The Advocate. While the police department has explained that the photo was related to an undercover narcotics operation from 25 years ago — one the police chief at the time recalled as “very successful” — current Chief Murphy Paul issued an apology about the photo. “Blackface photographs are inappropriate and offensive,” Paul said. “They were inappropriate then and are inappropriate today. The Baton Rouge Police Department would like to apologize to our citizens and to anyone who may have been offended by the photographs.”
The photo, which was posted online last weekend, shows two officers, Crimestoppers coordinator Lt. Don Stone and now-retired police Capt. Frankie Caruso, posing above a caption that says ‘Soul Brothers.’ Caruso and then-police chief Greg Phares defended the decision to have white officers dressing to appear black as a part of the police operation. They said it was done only with the intent to get drugs off the street, and not to degrade or make fun of black people. “I would like to see communities recognize what was wrong with it, and act from that,” said Maxine Crump of Dialogue on Race Louisiana, a local nonprofit working to eradicate racism. “Defending it and justifying it does not change the fact it was wrong then, even if they weren’t aware.” East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said, “While this may have been department-approved 25 years ago, that does not make it right. Blackface is more than just a costume. It invokes a painful history in this country and it is not appropriate in any situation.”