He admits making two comments that complain about affirmative action.
View full sizeJoseph Price, candidate for Onondaga County sheriff, appears at the May 16 Onondaga County Democratic Committee meeting in the Valley American Legion Hall. The committee decided not to back Price, but he won the nomination in a primary earlier this month.Syracuse, NY -- Internet comments with racist, sexist and homophobic overtones appeared last year on Syracuse.com under a user name of the Democratic candidate for Onondaga County sheriff.
Deputy Joe Price, who defeated the party’s designated candidate in last week’s primary, said the comments were posted under his user name: modman97. But Price said someone else posted the most inflammatory comments under his user name. He counted at least 60 such comments, which are the harshest among the 673 comments under that user name.
Someone must have stolen his password or sat at his computer at work or home while he was still logged on, then written under his user name without his knowledge, he said. He called the postings “obviously disturbing.” “I’m not a racist,” Price said. “I think I’m a standup guy.”
Price, 43, a jail deputy for 17 years, said he knew nothing of the most offensive postings until April, when county Democratic Chairwoman Diane Dwire confronted him with a printout of them. The party was about to decide whether to designate Price or sheriff’s Sgt. Toby Shelley to run against Sheriff Kevin Walsh.
Price told Dwire he didn’t write any of the offensive comments. Price said someone at the website told him to stop using the account after he inquired, and he did. The Democratic committee endorsed Shelley.
In interviews with The Post-Standard over the past two weeks, Price said he wrote most of the comments that appear under the user name modman97. Many deal with sports, but two others that he takes responsibility for included complaints about affirmative action.
One was in response to an online story about Black History Month. He complains in a Feb. 1, 2009, post that said, “When I went to college (SUNY system) they had clubs for Blacks, Jews, and Hispanics ... Their were NO exclusive clubs for my race.” Then he was denied a job as a state trooper because of affirmative action policies, he wrote.
“I had a dream, too, but it was squashed because I was WHITE!” Price’s post said.
All the other disputed posts were probably the result of someone joking around either at the jail where Price works, or at home, Price said at first.
In an interview, Price initially denied writing a post that made fun of kids who played in the school band and that made a homophobic joke about them. “Come on, now,” Price said in an interview. “Are we being serious here?”
He pointed out that he’s attended a gay pride parade in Toronto for the past five years, and that he has a homosexual person working on his campaign.
But Price changed his position about that post after The Post-Standard questioned him. That comment was sandwiched in the same thread between two innocuous comments that Price admits he wrote under modman97. He could not explain how he could’ve been unaware of the homophobic post in the same thread.
“It’s possible,” he conceded when asked again if he had written it. “Very possible, yes. But not maliciously.”
He later admitted he did write that post and that it was “childish.”
Among the other modman97 posts that Price denies writing:
• In response to a story about the state Assembly wanting a prevailing wage for a Syracuse harbor project: “We have a female County Executive, a black Governor and a black President. Its time to stop the (expletive). Wake up people!”
• In response to a story about Jamie Foxx coming to Syracuse: “I know you mean for the term ‘redneck’ to be derogatory, but its not. The term comes from caucasions who work in the sun all day. Typically farmers, and other folks that do hard manual labor for a living. Its Okay to WORK for a living ... pass it on at the next vigil!”
• In response to a story about an employment lawsuit involving the Oneida Indians: “The indians gave you a job, then they took it away. There is a word for those that give you something but take it back ... cant think of it off the top of my head.”
• “I am getting very tired of this (expletive) stiring the turds of racism for his self promotion. How much longer do us Syracuse season ticket holders have to be affiliated in any way with this knuckle dragger?”
That racial comment was in response to a story about Boyce Watkins, a black Syracuse University finance professor who often speaks and writes in the national media about race issues.
Watkins was shown the comment this week, and he heard Price’s defense that someone must’ve commandeered his account. “Anything’s possible,” Watkins said. “But did he file some kind of police report for identity theft?”
Price said he never called the police or asked the sheriff’s office to investigate his claim that someone was using his password. His campaign manager, Alfonso Davis, said Thursday that Price should have reported it.
Dwire, the Democratic chairwoman, said the party doesn’t have the ability to investigate such allegations. She believed Price six months ago, she said. “We listened to what he had to say, thought he was very genuine in his response,” Dwire said. “Without question, we condemn the postings. If it was proven beyond a doubt that Joe wrote these, we could not support a person who goes against these core Democratic values.”
The posts are more troubling because they’re written under the user name of a deputy who works in the Justice Center jail, which has come under fire in recent months for possible inhumane treatment of inmates, Watkins said.
Walsh, the Republican candidate seeking his fifth term as sheriff, said this week he had been unaware of the posts. He refused to comment.
Shelley, whose name is still on the ballot on the Working Families line, called on Price to get out of the sheriff’s race. “The mouth is a window to the mind,” Shelley said. “It really concerns me what’s in this man’s mind.”
Price noted that his campaign co-manager is black. That manager, Davis, said he was hired Tuesday. Price also said he has the support of his black co-workers at the jail. He said he courted the African American vote two days before the primary, going to black church services with Sam Roberts, a black Democratic candidate for state Assembly.
Price said he believes the posts were raised as an issue by someone trying to derail his campaign.
Contact John O’Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.