Brad Lamb was a deputy sheriff with the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) in Colorado and was supervised by Deputy Steven Collins. Collins repeatedly made racist remarks in the office, including disparaging comments about Mexicans in front of Deputy Brittany Martinez, who is of Mexican descent. Around November 2014, Lamb told his sergeant that he was offended by Collins’s comments and that he thought the sergeant condoned them. Despite…
Denise Watkins, who is African-American, was a shift supervisor for the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana. She reported to Lieutenant Marshall Carmouche, who reported to Sheriff Michael Tregre. On January 30, 2018 Carmouche commended Watkins and three other dispatchers for superb work. He recognized Watkins’s performance in an email to Sheriff Tregre, explaining that teamwork in the 911 Department had led to an arrest. Just…
Cliff Snider is a firefighter with the city of Pasadena, California. In 2009, and then again from 2011 forward, Snider was the president of the Pasadena Firefighters’ Association. In October 2014, Snider injured his back while trying to lift a patient during an emergency call. Although Snider initially felt well enough to remain on duty, he soon suffered a severe back spasm that required him to visit the emergency…
Shonda Million was a corrections officer for the Warren County Jail in Ohio. The Jail is operated by the Sheriff’s Office. It houses minimum, medium, and maximum security adult inmates of both sexes. Between September 2012 and August 2015, the Jail employed 17–23 female officers and roughly 33–35 male officers, not counting supervisors. The Jail has four male housing units and one female housing unit, known as C-Pod. C-Pod…
While Nickolas Forrest was employed with the police department in Haltom City, Texas, officers and supervisors began mocking his religion. Forrest is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church. He reported the problem to higherups. Shortly thereafter, the Department assigned an internal affairs officer to investigate Forrest for misconduct – namely lying to a superior officer about whether…
Officer Michael Fiocca was assigned to work in the Philadelphia Police Department Forensic Science Unit (FSU). Starting in 2015 or 2016, Fiocca and the other officers in the FSU gained access to the daily attendance records sheets (DARS) of all officers in the FSU. Fiocca’s access to DARS enabled him to see the vacation and sick balances, as well as the amount of overtime worked for every officer in…
Alberto Limon, a former corrections officer employed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), photographed fellow officers sleeping on duty, including some supervisors, some even with pillows. After Limon reported these officers to his supervisor, Captain Jose Badilla, a rat trap was placed on Limon’s seat; his name was scratched off his CDCR mailbox; and supervisors forced Limon to work several days in uniform, but without a…
Alisha Congleton was employed in the Letcher County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky for almost four years. Mickey Stines successfully ran for sheriff in the May 2018 primary and in the November 2018 general election. Congleton openly supported Eugene Slone, a deputy in the sheriff’s office, in the primary election. During the general election Congleton made various social media posts in which she praised Barry Engle, Stines’ opponent. Before Stines…
Aubrey Lyons is an African-American corrections officer with the Michigan Department of Corrections. After being transferred in 2012 to the Macomb Correctional Facility, Lyons allegedly began to experience various incidents of discrimination by his white supervisors. Lyons filed his first internal discrimination complaint against the Department in January 2015 in response to being disciplined for violating its computer use policies. Lyons claimed the white investigating lieutenant, James Webster, singled…
Jesse Diaz was a firefighter for Trenton, New Jersey. Diaz, who is Hispanic, was well-regarded by his colleagues and supervisors, and he enjoyed their camaraderie and support. That changed after Diaz overheard a white firefighter named Plumeri use a racist term in reference to an African-American colleague. Although the colleague was not present, Diaz thought that the incident was serious, and that Plumeri should be disciplined for using racist…
Houston firefighter Terrance Bailey, who is African-American, worked at Fire Station 21 for ten years. In February 2009, Bailey met with Captain Joe Schwaigger, Captain Shelley Squires, and District Chief Kenneth Currie to express his unhappiness about working at Station 21. He threatened to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if Currie did not transfer him to Station 47 as a permanent fill-in. Currie told Bailey…
Darren Pead was a police officer for Ephraim City, a small town in rural Sanpete County, Utah. In a recent lawsuit, Pead learned first-hand how the Supreme Court’s Garcetti rule provides little protection for job-related speech. Pead claimed he discovered that Police Chief Ron Rasmussen had failed to fill out or complete hundreds of police reports, dating back as far as 2008, in violation of City policy and law…
Franklin Savage joined the Pocomoke, Maryland City Police Department in 2011, and in 2012 was assigned to the Worcester County Criminal Enforcement Team (CET), a multi-jurisdictional drug interdiction task force led by the Worcester County Sheriff ’s Office. In April 2014, Savage attended a meeting with members of the Worcester County State’s Attorney’s office, including State’s Attorney Beau Oglesby. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss an upcoming…
On June 23, 2014, Kathleen O’Toole became Chief of the Seattle Police Department. She promoted Dave Proudfoot to captain and assigned him to lead the South Precinct. On July 21, Sergeant Ella Elias filed notice of a claim stating that she intended to sue the City. This notice described a hostile work environment, gender discrimination, and retaliation claims. On September 15, O’Toole issued an investigatory transfer order that temporarily…
Walter Busby, who is African American, is a captain with the Tulsa Police Department (TPD) in Oklahoma. Busby reported to Major Walter Evans, who is also African American. On January 13, 2010, Evans called Busby to his office, and indicated that he was “ashamed and embarrassed about the lack of participation of blacks in TPD-sponsored activities, particularly the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade” and informed Busby that Evans…
The Santa Clara County Correctional Peace Officers’ Association represents rank-and-file corrections officers working for Santa Clara County, California. Section 7.4 of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the parties allows officers to trade shifts, but provides that voluntary day-off trades “must have prior administrative review and approval.” Everett Fitzgerald is a correctional officer and president of the Association. As the Association president, Fitzgerald would often trade shifts to gain…
Leonard Avila was a police officer for the City of Los Angeles. In January 2008, Avila testified under subpoena in a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) suit against the City of Los Angeles in the Central District of California brought by a fellow officer who sought overtime for working through his lunch hour. Avila testified that he and many other LAPD officers, including his supervisors, operated under an unwritten…
Pedro Torres and Robert Hill were officers assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Division. They frequently heard their immediate supervisor, Sergeant Gil Curtis, use derogatory terms and make disparaging comments in reference to African-Americans and Hispanics. On one occasion Curtis referred to Torres in his presence as “a lazy Mexican.” In March 2005, Hill initiated a misconduct complaint against Curtis with the Department’s Internal Affairs Division accusing…
In 2005, John Miller, a battalion chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department, was selected to head the Department’s Arson Counter-Terrorism Section (ACTS). ACTS is responsible for investigating suspected cases of arson, and where appropriate, presenting its investigative findings to the district attorney for criminal prosecution. The section is comprised of three commanding officers and 18 arson investigators. Because timely and thorough response to crimes of arson is critical,…
Patricia Karaffa was formerly employed as a police dispatcher by Montgomery Township, Pennsylvania. On February 1, 2011, she took approved FMLA leave for the birth of her daughter and later for the care of her newly-born daughter. Just prior to her return to work in April 2011, Karaffa was informed that she was assigned to work only overnight dispatching shifts. When Karaffa informed the Police Chief and Deputy Chief…
Sergeant Kerry Jernigan works for the Homicide Section of the Prince George’s County, Maryland Police Department. Jernigan worked 16 years as an investigator; he was occasionally assigned to temporary duty with various task forces. Upon his promotion to sergeant, Jernigan remained in the Homicide Section. Major Cesar Pacheco was the commander of the Section. Jernigan estimated that he had been assigned to approximately 1,000 cases in one capacity or…
Anthony Booth and Jerry Brown were emergency services workers for the Emergency Services Department in Pasco County, Florida, and were members of Local 4420 of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Both worked in the Department’s Station 14. In June 2007, Booth filed a Department grievance against the captain who supervised the station. The captain’s boss had warned Booth that he would be transferred if he filed a grievance,…
Charles Hughes was a corrections lieutenant for the State of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. While employed at the Department, Hughes was a member of the correctional police officers’ union. In 1995, he became a job steward. In that capacity, he represented union members in lower-level grievances and small internal affairs interviews. In 1998, Hughes was elected chapter president of the Union, a position he held until his…
Over the course of six months, Kenneth Kidwell, a 16-year veteran of the Danville, Illinois Police Department, publicly criticized several departmental officials at two police officers’ union meetings. Roughly during that same time period, Kidwell also committed several violations of departmental policy and was punished accordingly with, among other things, a written reprimand and a two-day suspension. Then, after Kidwell failed to clear a fitness-for-duty evaluation, the department officials…
Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), public employees have no free speech right when they “make statements pursuant to their official duties.” In other words, the Constitution provides no protection to an employee for speech that is part of the job, and the employer is constitutionally free to discipline the employee for the speech, even if the speech is truthful. A lawsuit…
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