QuickTake:

Body camera footage from Jan. 30 reveals an officer using “deeply offensive language,” Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said. The city’s police auditor is investigating the incident to learn whether other individuals involved were Eugene police employees.

A Eugene Police Department officer resigned Saturday, May 9, after a video published on YouTube Friday showed body camera footage of the officer “using racist and deeply offensive language,” Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said in a statement Saturday.

“What was said in that video is unacceptable. It was wrong, disrespectful, and completely inconsistent with the values of the Eugene Police Department. There is no excuse for racist remarks from anyone who wears this badge,” Skinner said in the statement.

Shortly after Skinner issued his statement, the city’s independent police auditor, Craig Renetzky, announced an investigation “regarding comments captured on Body Worn Video on January 30, 2026.” Jan. 30 was the night of a protest at the Eugene Federal Building that Eugene police declared a riot, and which ended with federal officers deploying tear gas outside the building.

The video purports to show body camera footage in which multiple individuals can be heard making racist and derogatory comments about Black people. None of the people who can be heard in the video are identified.

The individuals also discuss use of force, domestic violence and the protesters at the federal building.

Eugene police spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin confirmed the video in question is this one, posted on the YouTube account “Tim Lewis youtube” and subsequently shared on social media. Tim Lewis has been described as a “Eugene-based documentarian.”

After becoming aware of the video on Saturday around 11:30 a.m., Renetzky said his office “immediately planned to start the process of initiating a complaint and allegation of misconduct against any EPD employees involved in the case without waiting for a public complaint.”

About three hours later, at 2:24 p.m., Renetzky said he was notified the officer had resigned. Eugene’s independent police auditor can only bring allegations against current employees, Renetzky said, so his office can no longer make disciplinary recommendations against the officer who resigned. 

Renetzky stated his office will continue to investigate the incident to “ensure that none of the other voices heard in the video are EPD employees,” adding he will bring allegations against EPD employees if any are identified as involved in the incident. 

Lookout Eugene-Springfield transcribed part of the conversation between the individuals that involved racial comments. Lookout asked Renetzky to confirm which comments in the video were connected to the officer who resigned, but had not yet received a response, and it was not immediately clear which of the individuals heard in the recording was the EPD officer who resigned.

In the video, an individual said, “Is there a swinger, swinger cruise? I’ll do that.”

The second individual replied, “There’s some [inaudible] ones, yeah.”

After more discussion, the first individual said, “Which one do the Black people go on? Carnival?”

“No, no, Black people can’t, they don’t go on —” the second individual said before the first spoke over him, saying, “They can’t swim. You got to be able to swim to go.”

The second individual said, “Yeah, they like to just be grounded with their watermelon and fried chicken.”

In his statement the police auditor, Renetzky, called the comments “highly offensive, racist in their nature, and simply put, disgusting.”

Skinner said Eugene police will “continue reviewing our policies, training, supervision, and culture to ensure this kind of conduct is never tolerated inside this department.”

“The actions of one officer do not represent the men and women of this department who serve honorably every day, but we also cannot dismiss the seriousness of what happened,” he continued. “When an officer speaks with hate or prejudice, it damages the trust this department works hard to build with the community we serve.

“To the residents of Eugene: we hear your outrage. We hear your disappointment. And we accept the responsibility to do better.”

Taylor Goebel covers Lane County's food and drink scene. She has nearly a decade of experience in multimedia journalism, having reported across the Mid-Atlantic on dining, food systems, education, healthcare, local elections, labor and business. She was most recently a food reporter in Washington state, where she documented a fourth-generation fishing family, covered a David vs. Goliath conflict between a national coffee chain and a small Turkish cafe, and had many culinary firsts, from ensaymadas and gilgeori (Korean street) toast to morels and black cod.