A texting scandal that has rocked the Berkeley Police Department has led to a sergeant being placed on administrative leave and snarled the city’s pending appointment of a new chief of police.

City officials on Wednesday said that Sgt. Darren Kacalek has been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into the situation. Kacalek, who has been on the Berkeley police force since July 2002, is accused by a former officer of racist and disparaging messages about the homeless.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.