Eugene officer resigns after racist remarks in body camera video

An Eugene Police Department officer resigned effective immediately after body camera footage surfaced showing racist and offensive comments about Black people, reopening scrutiny of police conduct in a city still wrestling with trust after the Jan. 30 protest response at the Eugene federal building.

The roughly four-minute edited clip was reported to come from that day, when officers were downtown during protests against ICE operations. In the video, the officer was heard making profane and racist comments in a phone conversation while driving around the federal building. The clip was posted May 8 to Tim Lewis’s YouTube account, and the description said a longer 23-minute version would be shared later.

Police Chief Chris Skinner said the remarks were "wrong, disrespectful, and completely inconsistent with the values of the Eugene Police Department," adding that speech rooted in hate or prejudice damages community trust. Independent Police Auditor Craig Renetzky said the comments were "highly offensive, racist in nature, and simply disgusting."

Renetzky said his office was notified the officer had resigned before he could open a misconduct complaint. He said the auditor’s office can only take formal action against current employees, but he would continue reviewing the video to determine whether any other Eugene Police Department personnel were involved. Renetzky reports directly to the Eugene City Council.

The case carries particular weight in Eugene, where Black residents make up only a small share of the city’s 176,654 people counted in the 2020 Census, about 1.6% in one census-based estimate. For Black residents, racist remarks from a sworn officer can reverberate far beyond a single personnel matter and cut directly to whether police can be trusted in everyday interactions across the city.

The episode also lands in a police oversight system designed to catch exactly this kind of misconduct. Eugene voters approved the charter change that created the city’s independent police oversight structure in 2005, and the Police Auditor’s Office was established that same year to receive, classify and route complaints. Eugene Police Department patrol officers have worn body cameras since 2017, and the department received more than $900,000 in 2024 to replace aging body-worn cameras and in-car video systems.

The video comes after complaints tied to the Jan. 30 federal-building protest response had already prompted a preliminary review by the independent police auditor. With the officer now gone, the pressure is on Eugene police leadership to explain what supervisors knew, what reviews were opened, and whether the department will look again at any related conduct as it tries to rebuild confidence in its handling of Black residents and the broader community.