Officer apologizes over KKK sketch

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- A police officer who was suspended for sketching a picture of hooded Ku Klux Klan members staring down a well at a black person is now apologizing.\n\"I made a bad mistake," Brent Melton told the Evansville Courier & Press on Wednesday in his first public comments on the incident. "It was a tasteless joke, and I realize that."\nMelton, who is white, also sent a letter of apology to local media.\n"I hope all the good things that I\'ve done over the years overshadow the one bad mistake I made," he told the newspaper.\nMelton, who has spent six years as an Evansville officer, once won an award for helping rescue two girls -- who were black -- after they were abducted and thrown in the trunk of a car.\nMelton's drawing showed hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan staring down a well at what was implied to be a black person.\nThe city's Police Merit Commission voted March 11 to suspend Melton for three days without pay, deciding that a written reprimand recommended by Melton's supervisors would be too weak.\nMelton said Wednesday that he made the sketch as he and two other officers were in a police branch office in January discussing tasteless jokes and illusion-type drawings. Melton said he sketched a drawing of a circle with triangular shapes on the inner edges, which were meant to imply Ku Klux Klan members staring down a well. A short time later, he threw the drawing in the trash.\nA fellow officer, who is black, found it when he went to look for a piece of scrap paper, and it was brought to the attention of a supervisor.\n"Once I learned a black officer had found it and was offended, I went directly to him and apologized," Melton said.