Two black officers who have filed grievances and who are plaintiffs in a federal discrimination lawsuit against the Greensboro Police Department have been suspended from the department with recommendations for termination in as many days.
Capt. Charles Cherry, who was commander of the Eastern patrol division at the time he was placed on administrative leave in early June, faces termination for general conduct and for truthfulness and malicious gossip in grievances that he has filed, according a knowledgeable source who spoke on condition of anonymity. The general conduct charge relates to a June 17 e-mail Cherry sent out to members of his division providing details about his recommendation for fitness-for-duty evaluation, while truthfulness and malicious gossip infractions relate to a statement made by the captain to the effect that retired Chief Tim Bellamy was at one time a complainant in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission matter that is now in the federal courts.
Cherry was placed on suspension today. Yesterday, Officer Joseph Pryor was also suspended without pay with a recommendation for termination, said the Rev. Cardes Brown, the president of the Greensboro branch of the NAACP and an advocate for the officers. Brown said Pryor was suspended on the basis that information in one of his grievances was allegedly untruthful and constituted malicious gossip. A third officer, AJ Blake, was placed on administrative leave and recommended for termination last month for allegedly making “inaccurate and incomplete” statements and engaging in “malicious gossip” when he spoke at a press conference held more than a year ago at Brown’s church in which the officer argued that he was the victim of disparate treatment in a disciplinary matter, and for purportedly displaying an “ongoing pattern of poor judgment.”
City Manager Rashad Young said that a fourth officer “had disciplinary service” this week. It is not known at this time whether the fourth case has resulted in a suspension without pay and recommendation for termination.
Should interim Chief Dwight Crotts render a decision in favor of termination, Cherry, like the other officers, will likely appeal it up to the city manager level. But Young indicated in a July 29 personnel memo to Cherry that he feels little sympathy for his position.
“You contend that your recitation of your fitness-for-duty memorandum was an effort to dispel gossip, build trust, and continue the bond you have with your officers,” the city manager wrote. “I find that explanation disingenuous. Your purpose in reading your fitness-for-duty memorandum along with your elaboration on its merits was for the express purpose for exposing what you believed to be the ‘ultimate plan’ to terminate your employment and attack you leadership, as you stated in your June 14 memorandum.
“Your decision to both e-mail members of the department and read from the memo at line-up was clearly to cause disruption, stimulate rancor and discontent, and advance your theory of motivation and intent,” Young continued. “That is not the appropriate venue to make your argument and does not comport with the established procedures in the complaint resolution or grievance process.”
Referencing an internal investigation of Pryor without mentioning the officer by name, Cherry told City Manager Young in an Aug. 2 memo that he has access to an interview “of a professional standards investigator omitting information in an investigation that absolutely changes the course,” and that certain individuals that should have been investigated were not put under scrutiny.
“Even after Mike Speedling, the assistant city manager, in reviewing Officer Pryor’s grievance, said that either IA was incompetent or discriminatory, he wrote in your paper that that was only applied to one case,” Brown said. “The man was suspended without pay even after the assistant city manager said with regard to Pryor’s case that IA was either incompetent or discriminatory?”
Speedling was quoted in a July 28 YES! Weekly article as saying that his comments referenced only one investigation. He added, “I do not make the leap of faith that Cherry does that if one investigation is investigatively insufficient that the entire professional standards division is incapable.”
Cherry and Brown have asked how Speedling could determine that one professional standards investigation reflected discrimination or incompetence, but remain unconcerned about whether any and all investigations undertaken by the same officers might have also been tainted. How can any officers under investigation by professional standards — currently including Cherry, Pryor and Blake — feel confident they will receive a fair and competent investigation, they ask.
“Comprehend that discrimination and incompetence are not technical errors you can change by sending an investigation back to the offenders,” Cherry wrote in a July 30 memo to Young. “Comprehend that you must correct and deal with (investigation, disciplinary action) the offenders, to include finding out why the discrimination and incompetence occurred.”
Cherry has stated in his correspondence to Young that after Speedling remanded the internal investigation of Pryor back to professional affairs, then-Assistant Chief Dwight Crotts changed the determination to “unfounded.”
“The whole process of this grievance was about a charge brought against Pryor that was declared by IA as unfounded,” Brown said. “Instead of Pryor letting it go, he said, ‘I can’t let it go because there were white officers who collaborated.’”
Cherry has urged the city, so far without avail, to request an outside investigation of the police department by the US Justice Department, contending that those in positions of authority within the department are so deeply implicated in the grievances that they no longer have the ability to render fair decisions.
Brown said that during a command review meeting, Capt. John Wolfe, remarked that he didn’t trust any of the officers who are plaintiffs in the federal discrimination lawsuit, and that Crotts, who is now interim chief, agreed, saying that he didn’t trust the officers either.
“Officer Pryor has to go before Dwight Crotts for his termination hearing,” Brown said. “He will likely uphold termination because he said he doesn’t trust the officers on the suit, and Pryor is one of them, just like Cherry and Blake are. The question should be asked of him: ‘Could you be unbiased?’”
Crotts told YES! Weekly today: “I can absolutely be impartial.”
Crotts said that he doesn’t recall the conversation in which he is alleged to have said that he doesn’t trust the officers on the discrimination suit. Wolfe, who was also reached by phone today, denied outright having made the statement, saying, “Those are not my words. I’m not going to comment on it.”
The city manager told YES! Weekly today that he has at least one outstanding grievance filed by Cherry that requires a decision on his part. That is a claim filed by Cherry on July 22 that an official decision by Assistant Chief Anita Holder deeming him fit for duty following two separate psychological evaluations confirmed a pattern of incompetency and unfair treatment.
“Interim Chief Crotts, through discrimination, retaliation and abuse of power, recommends me for a fit for duty psychological assessment, for which Chief Crotts cannot begin to justify,” Cherry wrote earlier this week.
Crotts declined to comment, calling the matter “a personnel issue.”
Cherry wrote, “Interim Chief Crotts utilizes as his reasoning (for fit for duty psychological evaluation), the fact that I wrote or assisted in writing grievances. This sentence alone is clearly an act of retaliation.”
Crotts told YES! Weekly he doesn’t consider his reference to Cherry’s grievances to be evidence of retaliation.
Cherry has protested to Young that his grievances are either not investigated or receive inadequate attention, while complaints against him appear to be zealously pursued. Cherry informed Young that on June 24 Sgt. AT McHenry notified him that he was investigating him for a possible violation of the department’s truthfulness directive. Cherry quotes McHenry’s notification memo as saying that Cherry stated in complaint that “Chief TR Bellamy was a complainant on an EEOC lawsuit filed originally by approximately 44 minority officers by former chief of police David Wray. Chief Bellamy, then an assistant chief, assisted in galvanizing officers together as it related to discriminatory, unfair practices of former Chief David Wray and former Chief Wray’s administration. Then Assistant Chief TR Bellamy applied to be chief of police just prior to appointment to chief of police, withdrew his name from the lawsuit. Chief Bellamy has denied that he has ever been part of the lawsuit.”
Cherry told Young, in response that lawyer Ken Free confirmed after Bellamy completed an EEOC complaint form that the future chief was on the lawsuit, that after Bellamy was appointed interim chief to replace Wray he instructed Sgt. Steve Hunter to destroy the EEOC complaint form, and that a footnote in a court document filed by Free contains information taken from Bellamy’s complaint form.
Hunter and Free could not be reached for comment for this story.
In closing his most recent correspondence with the city manager, Cherry wrote, “Mr. Young, you appear to be determined to be compliant to the political wheel of maintaining a vital lie, the necessary deception to maintain the social fabric of the community. Many seek the guerdon of authority but lack the courageousness for amelioriation. Never forget, the rules are the equalizer, thus, you can never abandon them.”
Young responded that, to the contrary, the only political pressure he’s felt has come from the NAACP and other segments of the community calling for the Justice Department’s intervention. Young said he has strived to make decisions objectively based on the information at hand, and will continue to do so.
“Certainly I want to limit the city’s risk and the city’s exposure,” he said. “I make decisions based on the policy direction that I get, what the right thing fundamentally is to do and the professional thing is to do. If we get sued because of that, then we’ll address that and deal with it.”
