http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5483280.htmlMembers of an African-American ministers group today called on Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas to step down after it was revealed that he sent e-mails depicting national civil rights figures the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton getting zapped and reduced to a puff of smoke.
The e-mail, obtained by Channel 13, shows Jackson and Sharpton as cartoon characters looking up at a star in the sky. A bubble reads: "Oh, wishing star, we wish for an end to racial strife and bigotry."
In the next image, the two leaders disappear in a cloud of smoke.
"Poof," the e-mail reads.
"I wish all this hatred and bigotry would just go away," said Rev. Robert Jefferson, pastor of Cullen Missionary Baptist Church, and a member of the Houston Ministers Against Crime, an organization that works with law enforcement officials. "He sent it to his staff promoting hate against black folk. We are not going to sit by as our public officials sit around being bigots."
This is the second time the minister's group has called on a public official to resign over race-sensitive e-mails. Two weeks ago, the group called for Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to step down immediately after court documents revealed he used government computers to send and receive racist and sexually explicit e-mails.
Rosenthal has refused to go.
"We're going to do something about this — march, file lawsuits whatever it takes," Jefferson said. "I wonder if there is a culture in our city that all Harris County officials are prejudiced toward black folks. Is this still a good ol' boy system?"
Sheriff's department spokesman Capt. John Martin said the sheriff characterized the cartoon as "political satire and nothing more."
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