Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay held up a sign last week during a “First Night parade” about ending “racism at work” with the hashtag #EndWhiteSilence:

@ChiefCSMcLay just committed to challenge racism at work #endwhitesilence We gonna hold you to it Chief! pic.twitter.com/MCn5YtCOwr

— WHAT'S UP?! (@endwhitesilence) January 1, 2015

McLay retweeted the above tweet to his own account and also tweeted this to the group that posted the picture:

"@endwhitesilence: It's time for courageous conversations about implicit bias, race and gender @ work & in our communities. It'll be OK…

— Cameron S. McLay (@ChiefCSMcLay) January 1, 2015

Some officers are outraged with McLay, with one police union head saying, “The chief is calling us racists. He believes the Pittsburgh Police Department is racist. This has angered a lot of officers.”

McLay released this statement in response:

I was hired to restore the legitimacy of the police department. I did not seek these young activists out. I was stopping for coffee at First Night. Their message is not anti-anybody. It is simply a call for awareness. The photo was a great, spontaneous moment in time. Please join dialogue for community healing.

He also sent an email to the Bureau of Police insisting he wasn’t condemning cops as racists, just that he wants to combat “racial problems in the workplace” because, as he argues, “our enforcement efforts have a disparate impact on communities of color.”

Watch KDKA’s report below:

[h/t MSNBC]
[image via screengrab]

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