BOSTON -- A Boston police officer who sent a racially offensive e-mail to several people, including the Boston Globe, has been fired, the department said Friday.

Police Commissioner Edward Davis said Officer Justin Barrett was terminated Friday for violating department rules when he sent the e-mail on July 22, 2009.

“The Boston Police Department is committed to a standard of excellence. After a thorough investigation of this matter, it is evident that Officer Barrett’s actions do not comply with that standard. Given the egregious nature of his actions and its effect on our community, I strongly believe that the only appropriate discipline is termination," Davis said in a statement.

In the e-mail, Barrett called Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates a "jungle monkey."

Gates, a black Harvard scholar, was arrested at his home in July 2009 on a disorderly conduct charge after he tried to budge open the door of his Cambridge home.

"(Gates') first priority should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a ... jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance," the e-mail said.

Barrett, 36, was appointed to the department in June 2007. The termination comes after an internal affairs investigation and hearing and is effective immediately, officials said.