Officer’s lawsuit accuses Columbus Police of racism, discrimination
A black Columbus police officer says he was harassed by fellow officers, denied job assignments because of his race and retaliated against for participating in an investigation of threats made by a white officer, according to a lawsuit filed against the Columbus Division of Police.
The lawsuit, filed April 17 in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, accuses Sgt. Eric Moore, a white narcotics sergeant, of calling two officers the n-word and making a statement about killing them in 2014. When other officers were interviewed about Moore’s attitude toward blacks, they told investigators he would refer to black people as apes and monkeys, according to an internal police investigation.
Through a police spokesman, Moore declined to comment.
The lawsuit accuses the division of a “pattern, practice and policy of discriminatory treatment of minority officers” under the leadership of Police Chief Kim Jacobs. The lawsuit says that Jacobs doesn’t hold accountable officers who exhibit racist or discriminatory behavior.
“It’s like she’s using a megaphone: ‘You don’t have to worry about me coming down hard,’” said attorney Frederick Gittes, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of 53-year-old Officer Karl Shaw.
Jacobs said the burden is high to prove whether a racist, sexist or homophobic mindset affects policing.
“If I could prove a racist, sexist, homophobic mindset impacted an officer’s behavior, that’s something I can act on,” she said. “But it has to be actions, not thoughts. And of course, if we have evidence of racial (or other) profiling, that is very serious. But again, each case has its own set of circumstances and what we can prove and what we may think may be two different things.”
Investigators determined that Moore used racially derogatory language, and he was given a written reprimand in 2015. They did not sustain the accusation that Moore threatened the officers because an investigator noted that more corroboration was needed, according to an internal report.
Jacobs said she follows disciplinary policies dictated by the contract between the Fraternal Order of Police and the city.
“I believe that a written reprimand was called for based on the place and setting it was used in because I believe I could support that level contractually,” Jacobs said in an emailed response to Dispatch questions. “But to jump past a written (reprimand) and go for a suspension, leave-time forfeiture or termination, I have a heavier burden to prove because that involves the officer’s property interests.”
The Ohio Civil Rights Commission found that the division was “engaging in unlawful discriminatory practices” in 2016 in Shaw’s case. The city disputed the finding and an administrative lawsuit was filed. That was dropped. The civil lawsuit filed last month seeks more than $25,000 in damages.
Officers facing discipline can be issued documented constructive counseling or given a written reprimand, suspension, demotion or termination.
Jacobs said she likely would require documented constructive counseling for rude or discourteous behavior. She said that racist, homophobic or sexist remarks move to the next level — a written reprimand.
Even that can be contested, though. Such cases can be challenged, end up in arbitration and sometimes overturned, which can undermine her ability to discipline officers. That’s the system to which city leaders agreed in the contract with the police union.
Jason Pappas, president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. #9, which represents Columbus police officers, said Jacobs has the ability to issue harsher penalties for racist remarks. But that requires notifying everyone in the division that there will be new consequences.
“Even though we have precedence, that precedence can be broken if certain steps are followed and it’s appropriate. ... You can draw a line and say, ‘From this day forward, it’s going to be this,’” he said.
Jacobs said it’s not that simple. There have been cases in which officers were notified across the division about increased penalties and an arbitrator gave an officer less discipline than the precedent in at least one case. She said circumstances matter in deciding on discipline.
In Moore’s case, the comments he made were about two black Strategic Response Bureau officers, detective Eric Cornett and Sgt. Doug Williams, according to the lawsuit.
Since the incident, Cornett, who was a Columbus officer for 23 years, told The Dispatch he quit his job and left the state because the harassment from Moore and others worsened. Cornett said he worried about whether Moore would follow through on the threat.
“I think it’s no big deal to
″ administrators, he said. “They go home and they don’t have to worry about it.” Cornett said he also is in the process of filing a lawsuit against the city.
Moore was never removed from his assignment during the investigation and initially was in charge of filling two narcotics positions. Shaw and another black officer were asked to interview for the job while white candidates were not interviewed, according to the lawsuit.
Shaw said another officer received a text that warned that Shaw had “better not” take the narcotics job, according to the lawsuit. Shaw withdrew from consideration for the narcotics job.
“Anything can happen. I didn’t feel like putting myself in a situation — basically in harm’s way. I could have been set up,” Shaw said. “I had a talk with one of the lieutenants. He basically told me he could try to protect me but he wouldn’t be around all the time. I told him I had to pass.”
Shaw now works as a resource officer at East High School. Despite his experience, he said he encourages teens to go through the police academy and become officers. He said he still loves policing.
Moore was fired in 2016 over allegations of overtime fraud. Nearly a year ago,
an arbitrator gave him his job back. When Moore returned to the division, he was returned to his narcotics sergeant position after an arbitrator ruled that he should.
Gittes has represented black officers in cases regarding their treatment in the police division for decades. After a five-week trial in 1984 in which Gittes was the attorney, a U.S. district judge ruled that the Columbus Police Division had discriminated against 16 black officers he represented. As a result of the trial, a judge ordered the city to hire an independent equal opportunity officer and increase diversity within the division. The orders later were lifted.
The police division’s history of leniency for officers who exhibit racist behavior sends a strong message that reverberates throughout the ranks of officers and into the community, Gittes said.
“If they’re going to discriminate against their fellow officers, imagine how free they must feel to discriminate against citizens,” he said.
As of March, the division had 184 black officers, about 10 percent. U.S. census data show that about 28 percent of Columbus residents are black. About 13 percent of the 1,869 officers are minorities. The highest rank currently held by a black person in the division is lieutenant.
Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther called on police, as well as the Fire Division, to double the diversity within their ranks during the next 10 years. A recently formed police advisory commission is examining topics such as diversity and best practices for policing.
Jacobs said she believes the division has made progress over the years.
“I can still recall the sexist comments, sexist behaviors and sexual harassment I heard and dealt with from the 1980s, but I believe we have a much better working environment now,” she said. “When you are the victim of such behavior, you have long memories of that, but I can see the progress we have made. That doesn’t mean we are perfect and that no problem exists, but I must rely on my personnel and my supervisors to report such incidents and to investigate them.”
