Pinning the bizarro meter

As kind of a follow-up to the Henry Louis Gates story, I learn via the Boston Globe (via RawStory) that

Justin Barrett, the Boston police officer suspended from the force for his e-mail likening Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., to a "banana-eating jungle monkey," has filed a lawsuit against the Police Department, police commissioner, and mayor, saying the city violated his civil and due process rights.

The 18-page lawsuit accuses the three parties of "conspiring to intentionally inflict emotional distress and conspiring to intentionally interfere with the property rights, due process rights, and civil rights of the plaintiff." ...

According to the lawsuit, the mayor and commissioner’s actions caused Barrett pain and suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, posttraumatic stress, sleeplessness, indignities and embarrassment, degradation, injury to reputation, and restrictions on personal freedom.

So if I understand correctly, this jackass twerp who used the term "jungle monkey" not once but four times and said he would have pepper sprayed Gates in the face for his "belligerent non-compliance" (which seems to go back to what I was saying the other day) thinks he has some kind of constitutional right to be a racist cop.

This suit should be laughed out of court and he should be booted - and laughed - off the force. Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, who stripped Barrett of his badge and gun and suspended him, said "These racist opinions and feelings have no place in this department or in our society and will not be tolerated." Let's hope he stands by that.

Meanwhile, Professor Gates, who has had to change his cellphone number and email address, reports receiving death threats and even bomb threats. Harvard University, which owns the house, has suggested he consider moving.

Oh, and think about checking out some of the comments at the first link, which is to Boston's right-wing excuse for a newspaper, the Herald - especially those that started to take great delight in calling him Henry Louis Hates and claim he deliberately provoked the incident to gain press attention.