Charles Cherry (left) and Joseph Pryor, pictured at the Beloved Community Center, were fired from the Greensboro Police Department in August.A recent complaint filed by Charles Cherry, with Joseph Pryor, contends that Greensboro police Chief Ken Miller is obligated to initiate a criminal investigation of Assistant Chief Anita Holder, having read a flier alleging that Holder committed the offense of solicitation to commit a felony or misdemeanor.
Cherry and Pryor are former Greensboro police officers who were fired in August.
The elements of the alleged offense submitted by Cherry are as follows: “Assistant Chief Holder solicited me to pursue a medical retirement; Assistant Chief Holder is not a medical professional; Assistant Chief Holder knew or should have known that I had no disability and had not been diagnosed with a disability, at the time she solicited me to take a medical retirement.”
Chief Ken Miller told me earlier this week: “The problem is that there is no substance to the allegation. Just look at Cherry’s letters in their totality. I don’t need to say anything more. And quite frankly I won’t. I’m done addressing Charles Cherry. Charles Cherry has litigation as his next avenue of appeal. He chooses not to pursue it. I encourage him to pursue it.”
Assistant City Manager Denise Turner said the city manager’s office would also decline to comment.
Cherry contends that under the Departmental Directive 1.5.12 Duty Responsibilities, the department is required to investigate the allegation. The directive states,
Employees shall perform all duties as required by law and competent authority, regardless of their specific assignment or job description. They shall perform their duties in such a manner as to effectively and efficiently carry out the functions and objective of the department. Employees assigned to specialized duties are not relieved of the responsibility of taking prompt action in the matter of any violation of law rules of the department coming to their attention, unless specifically authorized by competent authority, directive or procedure.
Cherry’s most recent complaint also alleges a conspiracy to unlawfully arrest Pryor and him at a community meeting at Smith Senior Center earlier this month for the purpose of discrediting them.
“Police Chief Ken Miller’s plan was to ask me and citizen Pryor to leave, once we asked a question, and not allow us to respond ‘quick enough.’ Chief Ken Miller would then order the arrests of me and citizen Pryor, charging us with 2nd degree trespass."
Numerous police officers attended the meeting, although Miller and Lt. Mike Richey, commander of the Eastern Patrol Division, handled the vast majority of the presentation. The complaint references a brief exchange between Cherry and Assistant Chief Ron Rogers, displaying a slice of police vernacular.
Cherry: “Man, it’s thick in here. What’s up, ya’ll trying to do us?”
Rogers: “Naw, Richey just wanted to bring his CRT team.”
I asked Jeffrey Welty, a faculty member at the UNC School of Government with expertise in criminal law and procedure, whether there is any statutory requirement that the police department investigate Cherry’s allegations. He responded that he could not comment on departmental directives, but as a matter of law the answer is no.
“State law doesn’t create an obligation on the part of law enforcement to investigate every time a citizen alleges a violation of law,” Welty said. “In deciding whether to investigate a particular complaint, law enforcement would consider such factors as who’s doing the complaining, the seriousness of the alleged crime, whether there’s other evidence that would suggest the complaint is well founded, what else they have going on right then and so on.”
Cherry also continues to insist that the department refuses to investigate an allegation that Assistant Chief Dwight Crotts violated the state personnel privacy act by directing speaking to a subordinate who is conducting an internal investigation on another officer about information from Cherry’s personnel file.
I asked Howard Neumann, an assistant district attorney in the Guilford County District Attorney’s office, if Cherry’s allegation against Crotts was something his office would like to see investigated so they could make a determination about whether to prosecute.
“All of his allegations have to do with an employment issue, and that’s not something we would be interested in looking into,” Neumann said. “It sounds like an internal police department matter, which I’m confident they can look into and resolve in an appropriate fashion.”
What about the allegation that Holder violated the state law against solicitation to commit a felony or misdemeanor?
“He doesn’t allege anything that I think warrants a criminal investigation,” Neumann said.
Cherry and Pryor received letters from City Manager Rashad Young turning down their termination appeals. Courtesy of the News & Record, the letters are available here in a combined document.
The city manager cites a handful of reasons for Cherry’s dismissal.
“You acknowledge that you agreed to keep confidential the details of the Leadership Team meetings held during 2007 and 2008,” Young writes. “However, you alleged that discriminatory comments were made in the meetings; and therefore, you were no longer required to respect the confidentiality of the meetings. I do not find your reasoning to be persuasive.”
Cherry had continuously alleged in various written complaints that “in a command staff-only meeting, Captain JE Wolfe stated that he did not trust the individuals on the EEOC lawsuit.”
Names of police employees are redacted in Young’s termination letter to Cherry, but their identities can be contextually inferred.
“Captain [Wolfe] stated that he expressed concern regarding the impartiality of decision making of command-level individuals involved in the EEOC lawsuit," Young writes. "This statement does not constitute discrimination or retaliation as those terms are defined by federal or state law or city policy.”
The two command-level employees signed on to the EEOC complaint, which has now become a federal discrimination lawsuit, were Cherry and Rogers. They remain plaintiffs.
Young also faults Cherry for reading his response to a fitness-for-duty recommendation aloud to the eastern patrol division lineup in June, calling the act “inappropriate and disruptive.” Two psychologists ultimately determined that Cherry was mentally sound.
Later, Cherry sent out a mass e-mail to fellow police employees explaining his administrative status.
“This issue serves to illustrate your lack of discretion and judgment,” Young writes. “You fail to realize that as a command-level officer you are expected to play an instrumental role in maintaining an efficient workplace. Your e-mail and personal responses to the masses regarding your supervisors’ decision to evaluate your fitness for duty undermined the command structure. An effective force requires the respect, self-discipline and judgment of its officers. By expressing your concerns to your subordinates, you disregarded and undermined the chain of command. Your comments, without the benefit of a response from your supervisors only serve to bring rancor, speculation and distrust to the operation and command hierarchy of the department.”
Young also noted, “You have repeatedly stated that [Tim Bellamy] was a complainant on an EEOC lawsuit against the city of Greensboro. Furthermore, you contended that [Bellamy] withdrew his name from the lawsuit just prior to his appointment as [chief]. The charge of truthfulness is unsubstantiated based on the disputed testimony of [Bellamy] and reserve officer [Stephen L. Hunter].”
“There is no evidence, whether disputed or otherwise, that suggests that [Tim Bellamy] was ever a complainant on an EEOC lawsuit against the city,” Young continues. “Moreover, there is no evidence that [Bellamy] withdrew from an EEOC lawsuit in exchange for his promotion to [chief]. This allegation was not confirmed or corroborated and you did not verify the authenticity of this allegation. This issue yet again demonstrates a lack of discretion and judgment from a command-level officer of the GPD.”
While no lawsuit had been filed at the time of Bellamy’s involvement, contrary to the city manager’s assertion, a copy of Hunter’s notarized letter submitted by Cherry states, “During the period surrounding the resignation of former chief of police David Wray I was one of a few officers tasked with collecting EEOC complaint forms from black police officers who felt they had been victimized by discriminatory or racist practices by David Wray or those within his administration. Among the complaint forms I collected was one from then Major TR Bellamy.”
Hunter said that when Bellamy was appointed acting chief he destroyed the complaint form according to Bellamy’s wishes before turning it over to the black officers’ lawyers.
Young made the determination that Cherry violated the department’s Malicious Criticism and Gossip directive by commenting on Bellamy’s involvement with the EEOC matter, adding, “This issue yet again demonstrates a lack of discretion and judgment from a command-level officer of the GPD.”
The city manager appears to walk a tightrope on the matter of Cherry filing grievances on behalf of both himself and other department employees.
“Every employee has a right to file grievances and raise concerns they believe affect their work environment,” Young wrote. “As an employer, we have an obligation to review and make determinations relative to those claims. However, employees also have an obligation to exercise sound judgment and use good discretion as they pursue or advance those grievances in a reasonable manner.”
Among those who received assistance from Cherry on grievances was another plaintiff in the federal discrimination lawsuit, Officer Joseph Pryor.
Young states in his final appeal letter to Joseph Pryor, dated Oct. 7, that the relevant questions in the case are whether the officer had violated the department’s truthfulness directive by continuing to state that his signature had been improperly placed on a Notice of Administrative Investigation form and whether he violated the directive on malicious criticism and gossip by continuing to press the issue. In both cases, Young determined that the answer was yes, and that termination was the appropriate punishment.
Pryor has continuously asserted that the professional standards division discriminated against him in its handling of an administrative investigation into whether he kicked a citizen arrested at Smith Homes in the stomach in January 2009.
“Your support for this contention, in part, is [Assistant City Manager Michael Speedling’s] statement that the results of the use of force investigation against you were due to PSD’s ‘discrimination or incompetence,’” Young writes. “However, you fail to mention that [Speedling] made that statement based on your claim that the complainant failed to identify you as the officer who allegedly assaulted him. The facts of the use of force investigation are clear. The complainant described the officer who allegedly kicked him as being ‘6’0”-6’1” in height, dark complexion, with a close haircut.’ The complainant made this description to investigators in his initial interview and in a subsequent interview. As you know, you were the only African-American officer at the scene. Accordingly, PSD’s investigation was neither the result of discrimination nor incompetence.”
Pryor told YES! Weekly that those details simply were not in the description provided by the complainant, contrary to Young’s assertion, and only cropped up after the criminal investigation division completed its probe to determine if charges should be filed and passed the case along to the professional standards division, which handles possible administrative violations.
“There’s no ‘six-foot-one, dark complexion’ in there,” Pryor said. “Corporal Cundiff, who conducted the criminal investigation, said the subject was unable to give a physical description. And then in the administrative investigation it became ‘approximately six-one, dark skinned.’”
As Young notes, Pryor was ultimately “vindicated of any wrongdoing” in the administrative investigation. Yet in the process, Pryor contends, Sgt. Mike Loy disregarded available information that would have exonerated him and, if anything, shifted suspicion to the two white officers, who were also on the scene at the time of the arrest, and who also were ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.
“You have two Caucasian officers saying they struck the guy, and I didn’t touch him,” Pryor said. “Why do you want to continue to investigate me after two people said, ‘No, Pryor didn’t strike him?’
“I have medical records to prove that I couldn’t do what I was accused of doing,” he said. “I was out for five months after that with a strained [medial collateral ligament of the knee].”
Cpl. Jay Atkins indicates in a professional standards interview conducted by Loy in June 2009 that police had been monitoring Smith Homes for open-air drug sales when Cpl. WD Coble decided to stop Terrance Lipscomb after observing him throw something down on the ground. Atkins patted Lipscomb down, and Lipscomb ran. Several officers gave chase, including Pryor.
Officer HW Cox, who arrived on the scene a little later is heard in an audio recording telling Loy from a separate interview conducted in June 2009 that he saw Pryor “hit the subject with his two hands” during the chase, causing both the officer and the suspect to fall to the ground. Cox said soon afterward he watched Atkins come over and jump on Lipscomb. Atkins told Loy he pinned Lipscomb to the ground by kneeling with one knee on the suspect’s back and the other on the ground.
Cox said when he caught up with Atkins and Lipscomb, the suspect had placed his hands under his stomach so that the arresting officers could not handcuff him. Cox used a method prescribed in training known as super scapular strikes to bring Lipscomb into compliance. In plain English, it means he hit him in the shoulder blades to make him pull his arms out.
“I hit him with the super scapular strikes,” Cox can be heard saying. “I issued the strikes and his arms came out, and we got him cuffed, adding that a number of officers “piled up on” Lipscomb “pretty deep” to bring the suspect under control.
Even though Atkins acknowledged placing his knee on the suspect’s back and Cox candidly discussed hitting him in the shoulder blades, the interviews remained focused on whether Pryor kicked him in the stomach, as alleged by Lipscomb.
That assertion was corroborated by a civilian witness, said Cpl. Jack Steinberg, who also worked on the administrative investigation.
“I don’t know what she’s saying because he was on the ground holding his knee,” Cox is heard saying in an audio recording. “You might want to talk to her about that because she’s lying to you.” He added later: “Pryor had no contact with him at all. The only ones who had any contact with him at all is me and Jay.”
Cox stated unequivocally in response to Steinberg’s questions that he did not observe Pryor kicking Lipscomb.
After the arrest, Lipscomb was placed in a squad car, at which point officers on the scene said he first made the allegation about Pryor kicking him in the stomach. Cox recalled that Pryor was in such bad shape that he drove him to the hospital.
Atkins was asked whether Coble was notified about the allegation made by Lipscomb.
“We did notify Corporal Coble, told him that the guy was alleging that Pryor kicked him,” Atkins said. “Which I told him he didn’t kick him because Pryor was never even around there to make contact with him.”
Loy said today that he could not comment on the matter because all the information is in Pryor’s personnel file, and therefore protected from public disclosure.
Pryor continuously filed grievances up his chain of command to Young himself, urging them to review the professional standards division’s handling of the investigation.
“I was saying, ‘When was Mike Loy going to be investigated for omitting information from an investigation?’” Pryor said. “‘When was Shawn Barnes going to be investigated for adding my physical description?’ To this day, that hasn’t been investigated.”
Barnes could not be reached for comment.
Pryor also complained that his signature was forged, copied, scanned in or otherwise improperly placed on a Notification of Administrative Investigation form. Then Chief Tim Bellamy assigned Capt. Therron Phipps, commander of the operational support division, to conduct the investigation. He found no wrongdoing on anyone’s part.
“I reviewed the audio recording of Cpl. [Steinberg] with you,” Young states in the appeal letter. “He states that he is giving you the Notice of Administrative Investigation form and asks that you read and sign the form. There is a pause when presumably you are reading the form. I then heard the sound of writing. At no point during the recording do you refuse to sign the form or make any comment about the structure of the form or the presence of a signature of any person other than Cpl. [Steinberg]. It is reasonable to conclude that you did in fact sign a Notice of Administrative Investigation form, as requested by Cpl. [Steinberg].”
Pryor responded in an interview with YES! Weekly: “What he neglects to tell you is that the person whose name is on the document didn’t interview me. It had Sgt. Barnes’ name on it when he had already been transferred out of that unit. The person who interviewed me was Cpl. Steinberg. They said they were in transition, and Sgt. Barnes left the notification. If Steinberg is in training, why is he conducting an interview with me? Why would Sgt. Barnes leave a notification? When you sign a notification as an investigator, you’re signing it to say you witnessed me signing it. If you left it for me to sign, how could you witness me signing it?”
Young dismissed the significance of the notification.
“It follows then that either Sgt. [Barnes’] signature was added to the form after you signed it or your signature was added on a different Notice of Administrative Investigation form bearing Sgt. [Barnes’] signature. Neither scenario is reasonable. This form has no constitutional or legal value. The GPD uses this form to notify the employee of the scope of the investigation. There would be no compelling reason to add your signature to this form.”
Young writes that Pryor’s continued assertions that he did not sign the form are untruthful. The city manager also found the police officer in violation of the malicious criticism and gossip directive on the basis that “your allegations of discrimination and incompetence against the PSD tended to impair the operations of the department by asserting that its administrative investigations are dishonest and discriminatory.”
Pryor’s colleague, Charles Cherry, has leveled the accusation of untruthfulness at numerous employees in the police department, along with staff in the city manager’s office and human resources. In that sense, the city manager’s high-minded words at the end of the appeal letter sound as if they could just as easily reflect the sentiments of those on the other side of the dispute.
“A police officer has the ability to deprive a person of life, liberty and property based in large part on the credibility of their word,” Young writes. “Accordingly, police officers must be absolutely truthful in all matters. An officer whose truthfulness is at issue is unfit to exercise the powers vested in the police department.”
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