The Boston Police Department announced today it has terminated Justin Barrett, an Area B-3 officer who sent a mass e-mail last year with racially derogatory terms about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

Police Commissioner Ed Davis said in a statement he could not allow somebody like Barrett to remain on the force:

"Given the egregious nature of his actions and its effect on our community, I strongly believe that the only appropriate discipline is termination," Davis wrote. "I commend the officers who voiced their disapproval of Officer Barrett's actions. Our department has a top to bottom commitment to community policing, which is founded in trust. We will not allow the actions of one to damage the community relationships that are essential to our mission to serve the citizens of Boston."

Barrett had been on suspension since July, after he sent an e-mail, in which he referred to Gates as "a bumbling jungle monkey" to a Boston Globe columnist and fellow National Guardsman following Gates's arrest by Cambridge officers.

Barrett, 36, had been a Boston police officer since 2006.