Dan Page, among the police working at Ferguson protests, is relieved after video emerges of him saying ‘I’m into diversity, I kill everybody’

A police officer involved in the protests over Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, has been relieved of his duty after video surfaced of him making racist and derogatory remarks.

Dan Page was recorded in April giving a speech in which he described President Barack Obama as an illegal immigrant, and railed against Muslims and gay people. “I’m into diversity – I kill everybody,” he said.

Page - who was seen live on CNN earlier this week threatening to arrest the network’s anchor Don Lemon – is the second St Louis county officer to have been stood down in controversial circumstances surrounding the Ferguson protests. Lieutenant Ray Albers was suspended on Wednesday after video emerged of him pointing his assault weapon at protestors and threatening to kill them.

In his speech, Page, who claims to have been a sergeant major in the US army and a Vietnam war veteran, sharply criticised laws intended to protect minorities from racially-motivated hatred and to help increase ethnic diversity.

Citing the US declaration of independence’s statement that “all men are created equal”, he said: “That does not mean affirmative action. It means we’re all equal … God does not respect persons so we have no business passing hate crime laws.”

“This here”, he added, brandishing a copy of the Bible, “is the foundation for this”, meaning the declaration of independence. Referring to the justices of the supreme court in Washington DC, he added: “You can’t separate them. I don’t know what them black-robed perverts don’t understand down there.”

Page made his remarks during an address earlier this year to a St Louis branch of the Oath Keepers, an association of former and serving military personnel, police officers and first responders. The group says that its members “pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to ‘defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic’”.

At one point during a slideshow of his past travels, Page displayed a photograph of himself in Kenya. “I said ‘I wanna go find where that illegal alien claiming to be my president, my undocumented president, lives at.’” He has previously said in interviews that he retired from the army because of Obama.

Page also told the audience in his speech: “If you take a stand against sodomy or abortion you’re a terrorist, ladies and gentlemen … In the military right now we have open sodomy, people holding hands, people swapping spit together. Sick. It’s pitiful.”

Later in his remarks, Page told a questioner in the audience: “Policemen are very cynical. I know I am. I don’t trust anybody. I hate everybody. I hate y’all, too. I hate everybody. I’m into diversity – I kill everybody. I don’t care.”

At another point, Page said: “I personally believe in Jesus Christ as my lord saviour, but I’m also a killer. I’ve killed a lot, and if I need to I’ll kill a whole bunch more.

“If you don’t want to get killed, don’t show up in front of me. It’s that simple. God did not raise me to be a coward. There comes a time when you’ve got to man up.”

After viewing the video clip, the Guardian asked a St Louis County police spokesman repeatedly throughout Friday to confirm that Page was indeed a police officer who had worked on the protests. The spokesman initially said: “I don’t recognise the name.”

CNN first reported that Page was being relieved of his duties on Friday afternoon. The St Louis spokesman then confirmed to the Guardian that he was a county officer and added that Page had been “relieved of duty from here and placed in an administrative capacity pending an internal investigation”.

John Moore, a radio presenter and fellow Vietnam veteran who said he had been friends with Page for 26 years, told the Guardian on Friday Page had served in the St Louis police for “more than 20 years” and had remained a military reservist until recently.



“He’s been up to his eyeballs in a riot for about two weeks, dealing with rioters in 100 degree humidity. It’s rough. It’s a warzone,” said Moore. “He’s been working 12-hour shifts with no access to proper rest, proper food.”

• This article was amended on 23 August 2014 because an earlier version misquoted Dan Page’s reference to “black-robed perverts”.