The complaint filed with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission comes nearly five months after Campo, who is white, was shown on surveillance footage leaving a “Ku Klux Klan” note on Pool’s jacket inside the Ohio police department, according toCBS NewsandThe Washington Post.

Campo was also seen wearing a makeshift KKK hat in front of him, Pool’s attorneys said, per CBS News. However, he later told Sheffield Lake Mayor Dennis Bring that it was supposed to be a prank, the outlet reported.

“It was so demeaning,” Pool, who started at the department in September 2020,said at the press conference. “It was not a funny joke. It was offensive and humiliating, and beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in my entire career.”

“Even when we watch it now, I’m in disbelief that this happened to me,” he added.

Campo and a spokesperson for the Sheffield Lake Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The video does not contain sound, and it is not publicly known what Campo and Pool said to each other next.

“It was so demeaning that, in the moment, I didn’t know how to react. I felt like I’d be hit with a sledgehammer,” said the officer, who has worked in departments around northeastern Ohio over the last 30 years. “What else can you say to the chief of police who did something so heinous, so awful?”

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Days after the video had circulated, Campo, a 33-year veteran of the department, resigned from his position following a meeting with Mayor Bring, according to theAssociated Press.

“He thought this was just a joke,” Bring told the outlet at the time of his meeting with Campo. “How can you possibly think that you can put something on somebody’s jacket like that, and especially if they were African American, and think this is a joke?”

Campo later apologized in a since-deleted interview with theMorning Journal, saying that he hired the officer in question, but had offered an apology to him because he meant the note to be an attempt at humor.

“That’s all it was,” he said in the interview. “I had a joking back and forth banter with that officer since I hired him.”

Pool alleges that the chief “created racially offensive images mocking me, which he posted on the department’s bulletin boards and showed to other employees” and “made racially offensive remarks” to him and other officers of color.

He also claimed that Campo interfered with his job application and recruiting process, and said, “in the presence of multiple employees, that he would never hire a n—.”

“This was not the chief’s first time doing something racist and offensive to other employees,” Pool said during the press conference. “It was just the first time it got caught.”

“One or more of my superior officers had knowledge of Mr. Campo harassing me because I am Black but did not stop him,” Pool added in the complaint.

“It seems this was his regular workplace behavior,” Pool’s attorney, Ashlie Case Sletvold, noted to CBS News.

In addition to the discrimination charge, Pool’s legal team also filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Ohio in hopes of releasing the public records that document Campo’s allegedly racist behaviors, according to theWashington Post.

The city of Sheffield Lake has yet to provide the documents, per the outlet. They did not return PEOPLE’s request for comment.

“The City’s failure to turn over the public records documenting his misconduct makes me feel like they want to protect the ex-chief, Campo,” Pool said during the press conference. “It was inappropriate what he did to me, but even though everyone saw what he did to me, no one did anything to stop him.”

source: people.com