The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on Monday released the names of seven officers tied to an investigation into racially charged text messages. Six of the seven have resigned. The one who has not, Officer Jeremiah Todman, remains suspended without pay.
CMPD has not released the messages. Police Chief Estella Patterson said at an Oct. 15 briefing that they showed racial, sexual and religious biases and "go back several years." "I have asked our federal partners to look at the possibility of civil rights violations," she said. The department named the officers four days after its lawyer said it would not release the names while the case was pending.
CMPD cited six of the officers for termination on Oct. 9 and suspended them without pay. Five have since resigned rather than be fired, the department's release lists: Joseph Kelly on Oct. 11, Matthew Osborn on Oct. 12, Tredan Maronic on Oct. 13, Mateo Juarez on Oct. 15 and Alexander Larsen on Monday. Todman's case is pending before the Civil Service Board, which has sole authority to fire sworn officers.
Seth Elliott, the seventh officer named, "was also involved in the text message matter," the department said. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation arrested Elliott on July 29 on a misdemeanor charge of illegally accessing a government computer, and he resigned Aug. 4. In a July release, CMPD said the SBI had developed information indicating that Elliott improperly accessed the Flock camera network, which CMPD officers can access under an agreement with the company, and CJLEADS, a state criminal justice database, "once for non-law enforcement purposes." Patterson said the SBI shared what it found with CMPD for an internal investigation. "It was from that internal investigation that we learned about these text messages," she said.
The personnel records are public under state law. CMPD said it released them "to address misinformation regarding the officers' names," after giving them to several local media outlets that "have independently decided not to publish the officers' names." The department did not say what misinformation it meant or when it gave the records to those outlets. State law bars it from releasing an employee's race or ethnicity, the release said.
At the Oct. 15 briefing, Jessica Battle, a supervising assistant city attorney assigned to CMPD, said "there are certain parts of a personnel file that are public," but that the department "has not and will not release the names" while the personnel matter was pending.
Patterson began her remarks at that briefing with the case.
"As a Black woman who began my career here in this very department, it is especially painful and disheartening to hear concerns from our community about racism coming from within the ranks of this organization," she said.
A chain-of-command board, the department's internal panel that rules on Internal Affairs investigations, voted unanimously to cite the officers for termination, Patterson said, and she agreed. She said reviews of the officers' body-worn camera footage, traffic stops, arrest records and outside complaints had so far found no evidence of related misconduct.
CMPD will also seek to revoke the officers' North Carolina law enforcement certifications through the state, the department said. Patterson said the aim is "so that they cannot be an officer anywhere in our state." She said the department is auditing body-worn camera footage across the force and reviewing its hiring practices.
All seven were hired between June 2022 and February 2024, the records show. Four of them, including Elliott, were hired Feb. 26, 2024.
CMPD has not said when the Civil Service Board will hear Todman's case.