Black Democratic San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton is being accused of using the N-word against a Black cadet last month.
According to a San Francisco Chronicle published on Friday, Walton grew frustrated at the cadet while passing through a security checkpoint at City Hall on June 24.
San Francisco Undersheriff Joseph Engler noted what happened in a memo after being advised by the city’s Human Resources Director Carol Isen to document a possible hostile work environment incident.
“President Walton became very angry with Cadet (name redacted), who is African American, and said, ‘it is N-words like you that looks like me that is always the problem’ referring to the security protocols as some ‘N-word shit’ several times as he yelled at Cadet (name redacted),” Engler wrote.
Walton faces no formal punishment, and Engler and Isen consider the matter closed.
In a text to the Chronicle, Walton claimed that the memo was exaggerated and malicious, representing an act of retaliation due to his calls for more transparency and accountability at the Sheriff’s Office.
“No other Supervisor has been a (a bigger) thorn in the Sheriff’s Department side than me,” Walton said in the text message. “Therefore, there is no surprise that incidents (in the memo) are more colorful and salacious than what I experienced on that day. These incidents are in clear dispute and seek to vilify me and my character. I would never expect the Sheriff’s department to provide an accurate account of what transpired between two Black men.”
The cadet, whose name was redacted in the memos, identified himself in an interview with the newspaper as Emare Butler.
“It was embarrassing,” Butler told the Chronicle. “You come to work, and you don’t know who his friends are, you don’t know who he has alliances with. I’m just an employee here.”
He claimed that in addition to using the slur, Walton verbally threatened him. “‘You must not know who I am, I’ll whoop your ass,’” Butler said Walton told him during the incident at the security checkpoint.
One of the most powerful elected officials in San Francisco, Walton has frequently used his post to call out allegedly racist language and actions carried out by others.
In 2020, he introduced an ordinance that would make it illegal to call 911 to make a racially biased and fabricated report called The Caren Act (Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies), which is a reference to the slang term used to describe a white woman complaining about people of color.
