Following racist comments made about President Barack Obama, former 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney is calling for New Hampshire Police Commissioner Robert Copeland to resign, according to USA TODAY.
"The vile epithet used and confirmed by the commissioner has no place in our community: He should apologize and resign," Romney said in a statement, first reported by The Boston Herald.
The remarks were made public after a New Hampshire resident, Jane O'Toole, claimed to overhear him use a racial slur.
"Comments like these, especially coming from a public official, are not only inexcusable but also terribly, unfortunately, reflects poorly on our town," O'Toole said at a town meeting earlier this month.
However, Copeland, 82, wrote a letter to town officials refusing to apologize.
"I believe I did use the 'N' word in reference to the current occupant of the White House," Copeland wrote to his fellow commissioners last week. "For this, I do not apologize - he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."
Romney owns a home in Wolfeboro, where he spends summers with his family.
According to CBS News, none of the police officers in the town are black or of a minority group. Additionally, only 20 people in the town are black.
In March, Copeland won a three-year term on the police commission. Despite a media frenzy surrounding Copeland, Town Manager David Owen said he and the town's board of selectmen are unable to remove an official from office.
State Sen. Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican, told the Herald that Copeland, a friend of the family, should "really apologize."
"People around New England and around the United States should not look at the remarks of one person, who is refusing to resign so far, as indicative of how anyone else of Wolfeboro thinks," Bradley said.
"He can disagree with President Obama all he wants, but it's not right whether it's the president of the United States or any other American to be called what he was called. It's offensive."
