Greensboro senior staff address firing of black officer

Young

I had the opportunity to sit down this afternoon with senior staff in the Greensboro City Manager’s Office today to discuss the termination of Greensboro police Officer Joseph Pryor, one of a cohort of employees whose protestations has put the city in the hot seat in recent months. Unfortunately, City Manager Rashad Young and Assistant City Manager Michael Speedling’s remarks did not come in time to meet the press deadline for tomorrow’s story (retroactive link), but these are the most extensive statements any senior staff member has made to me on the topic since early July, and I count that as a victory.

Pryor has said in an appeal document submitted to Young that a questioned document investigation conducted by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department employee Jeffrey Taylor did not have an adequate scope to determine whether Pryor had signed an Notice of Administrative Investigation form. Pryor alleged that his signature was photocopied, scanned, forged or otherwise improperly placed on the form. First Assistant Chief Dwight Crotts and then Young found Pryor’s statement to be untruthful, and fired him as a result.

Young pointed to his termination review letter, which states, “Mr. Taylor concluded that the Notice of Administrative Investigation form contains your original signature and was not photocopied, scanned, forged or otherwise improperly placed on the form. Based on the audio recording of your interview with Cpl. [Jack Steinberg], the relative importance of the Notice of Administrative Investigation form, and most importantly, the conclusions of the forensic document examiner, I conclude that you did in fact sign the document in question.”

In an interview with YES! Weekly last week Pryor disputed Young’s statement that “the complainant described the officer who allegedly kicked him as being ‘6’0”-6’2” in height, dark complexion, with a close haircut” in a use-of-force investigation conducted on him. Those qualities describe Pryor. The former police officer continues to allege that the description was added to investigative documents after the fact and was never given by Lipscomb.

Pryor provided YES! Weekly with a copy of a criminal investigation memo authored by Cpl. Cheryl Cundiff that states that the complainant, Terrance Lipscomb, “was unable to give a description of the officer that he alleged kicked him,” and allowed me to listen to a recording of an interview conducted with Lipscomb by Sgt. Shawn Barnes for an administrative investigation in which the complainant.

“That was not the only interview with Terrance Lipscomb,” Young said. “That issue was reinvestigated and reconfirmed. We went out and interviewed him again and he confirmed well to [internal affairs]’s satisfaction.

Young quoted Lipscomb as saying in the re-investigation: “Yep, 6-2. And that’s what I said the first time.”

Pryor told YES! Weekly last week that the city has not investigated two allegations made by him, including that Barnes added his physical description. Later, Pryor provided a copy of a June 21 memo authored by then-Chief Tim Bellamy stating that the complaint against Barnes was investigated by Lt. MO Brodie.

“I concur there was insufficient evidence to support a violation of departmental directives,” Bellamy said.

Young also dismissed Pryor’s contention that professional standards should have dismissed Lipscomb’s complaint when two white officers who were on the scene at the time stated that Pryor had not kicked Lipscomb and that they, in fact, had struck him and piled on him.

“That’s easy,” Young said. “The complainant said by description who kicked him in the stomach. The fact that we had two other people who said, ‘I struck the blows,’ but the complainant says, ‘It’s this person,’ we can’t change the focus of the investigation because of that…. That is not even close to being an appropriate response. It’s all well and good that other officers said, ‘This is what he did and this is what I did.’ It turns out the citizen didn’t tell the truth. I think we would be in a world of hurt if we dismissed allegations on that basis.”

Speedling said he disputes an allegation repeatedly made by Cherry and Pryor that Speedling stated that the investigation conducted on Pryor was the result of either “discrimination or incompetence.”

Speedling said today that he told Pryor during a meeting earlier this year that “if, in fact, what you’re saying is true,” then that would be discrimination or incompetence.

“It has been allowed to perpetuate itself,” Speedling said. “And it’s been false.”

Speedling said that what prompted the remark about “discrimination or incompetence was Pryor’s statement about the allegedly fabricated description of him.

“I remember you telling me: ‘It ain’t on the tape,’” Young remarked to Speedling today.

Since that time, the two have concluded that Lipscomb did give that description.