| | | WOLFEBORO, N.H. —A police commissioner in a predominantly white New Hampshire town said he won't apologize for calling President Barack Obama the N-word, and he sat with his arms crossed while angry residents at a meeting called for his resignation on Thursday.
Wolfeboro residents demand commissioner resign over racial slur
Robert Copeland had heated exchange with News 9 reporter
UPDATED 12:24 AM EDT May 16, 2014
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WOLFEBORO, N.H. —A police commissioner in a predominantly white New Hampshire town said he won't apologize for calling President Barack Obama the N-word, and he sat with his arms crossed while angry residents at a meeting called for his resignation on Thursday.
Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland, who's 82 and white, has acknowledged in an email to his fellow police commissioners he used the racial slur in describing Obama.
Town resident Jane O'Toole, who moved to Wolfeboro four months ago, said she overheard Copeland say the slur at a restaurant in March and wrote to the town manager about it. Copeland, in an email to her, acknowledged using the slur in referring to the president and said he will not apologize.
"It's not like I was eavesdropping. Mr. Copeland was being very loud," O'Toole said.
Copeland was silent during Thursday night's meeting. He was asked to resign and said nothing. He did say plenty in a letter to O'Toole after she wrote to his bosses about his racial slurs.
"The letter really took the wind out of my sails, really," O'Toole said.
"I believe I did use the 'N' word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse (sic)," Copeland said in the email. "For this, I do not apologize -- he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."
Because they didn't get an answer inside, a mob of people demanded answers after the meeting was over.
Whitney White and several others confronted Copeland as he went to his car.
"I admitted what I did. I made no bone about it," Copeland said to White.
He did not want News 9 recording the conversation in the parking lot.
"If you want to talk further when this nosy individual leaves," Copeland said to White referring to News 9's Nick Spinetto.
"I'm not a nosy individual, I'm a reporter doing my job," Spinetto said to Copeland.
"I know what you are. You're a skunk. Goodbye," Copeland said to Spinetto.
There was no resolution Thursday evening.
Instead, the police commission plans on meeting to discuss what action they should take but they would not tell the audience where that meeting will be held or when.
Copeland is one of three members of the police commission, which hires, fires and disciplines officers and sets their salaries. He ran unopposed for re-election and secured another three-year term on March 11.
About 20 black people live in Wolfeboro, a town of 6,300 residents in the scenic Lakes Region, in the central part of New Hampshire, a state that's 94 percent white and 1 percent black. None of the town police department's 12 full-time officers is black or a member of another minority; one part-time officer is black.
Town Manager David Owen said Thursday that while he finds Copeland's comment "reprehensible," he and the board of selectmen have no authority to remove an elected official.
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