SAN DIEGO — A San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who circulated an offensive meme in the days following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has been fired.
According to documents posted on the Sheriff’s Department website this week, former deputy Mark Ritchie was dismissed after losing his final appeal to the county civil-service commission.
Ritchie was a longtime department veteran who texted the racist and sexual meme to five colleagues in late May 2020, just days after Floyd was killed by a police officer who knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.
Sheriff’s Department records show Ritchie was drunk at the time he sent the image from his personal cellphone to his colleagues’ personal devices.
The meme was quickly circulated and eventually made its way to the command staff, which opened an internal investigation within days and found that Ritchie violated numerous department policies.
“By disseminating the derogatory picture of George Floyd, Deputy Ritchie displayed acts that could be considered by the community as acts of racial insensitivity, poor judgment and racial bias,” one investigator wrote.
“The consequences of his actions will have a longstanding effect on the Sheriff’s Department and its employees,” another concluded.
The picture at issue was a photoshopped version of the notorious image of Floyd being restrained by former officer Derek Chauvin, who was subsequently convicted of murder, but Chauvin’s image is replaced with that of a naked African-American man.
The image had been broadly circulated on the internet.
Ritchie was hired by the Sheriff’s Department in 2000 and his final day of employment was in January 2021. He was last assigned to the George Bailey Detention Facility.
In 2006, Ritchie was cleared by the District Attorney’s Office of any wrongdoing in a Vista shooting the prior year that ended in the death of Jorge Ramirez.
A follow-up report from the state Attorney General’s Office upheld the findings by then-District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis but also said the 22 rounds Ritchie fired during a foot pursuit “cannot be justified as self-defense.”
The sheriff’s internal review of the Floyd meme concluded that Ritchie engaged in unbecoming conduct, immoral conduct and discrimination.
The former deputy also failed to meet department standards for behavior set for sheriff’s employees, the investigation concluded.
Nearly 100 pages of records related to the investigation were released by department officials on Monday under SB 1421, which requires public disclosure of information about police and sheriff’s deputies found to have violated laws or policies.
The department also posted images of text messages exchanged between employees and news reports of the photo Ritchie shared once that became public.
Ritchie’s lawyer argued that the deputy should not be terminated because, among other things, he had no history of disciplinary issues and only shared the Floyd image privately and during his off hours.
“When questioned by Internal Affairs, Deputy Ritchie took full responsibility for what he did,” the reports quote attorney Bradley Fields as saying. “While intoxicated he sent a meme from his private cell phone to other members of the department on their private cell phones.
“Deputy Ritchie admitted it was wrong and has apologized for his actions,” the attorney added.
Ritchie was initially recommended for a 30-day suspension.
But then-Assistant Sheriff Anthony Ray overruled that decision and opted for termination.
“I found the common information offered in mitigation was to minimize Deputy Ritchie’s actions and to shift the blame to others,” Ray wrote to then-Sheriff Bill Gore in late 2020. “I found no information sufficient to alleviate my disciplinary recommendation.”
Gore, who retired in mid-term earlier this year, agreed with Ray’s analysis and proceeded with the termination. A county Civil Service Commission proceeding ended last November with the termination order being upheld.
Ray was named acting sheriff until voters decide Tuesday between Undersheriff Kelly Martinez and former San Diego city prosecutor and police officer John Hemmerling.
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