Thomas MacMillan Photo
Attorney John Williams.
In a new lawsuit, 10 city cops charge that the city sought to avoid promoting them to the next rank because of their race.
Sound familiar?
“It’s just another version of the Ricci case,” said local civil rights attorney John Williams.
Williams represents 10 black police officers who claim the city’s Civil Service Board intentionally deviated from years of procedural precedents because of concerns that no Latino cops had passed a promotions exam. The board killed the exam’s resulting promotions list after one year, when such lists have historically been valid for two years.
The 10 officers are now suing the city in state Superior Court. Click here to read their complaint, filed Nov. 25, 2011.
It’s almost identical to the situation that led to Ricci v. DeStefano, the firefighter promotions case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and returned to smack the city with a bill for millions of dollars in damages. In that case, 19 white and one Hispanic firefighters, dubbed the New Haven 20, sued the city when it threw out the results of a 2003 promotions exam because African-Americans had not scored well.
The city was wrong to do so the Supreme Court ruled. It was similarly wrong to make the police department’s sergeant-promotions list valid for only one year — violating the rights of his New Haven 10, attorney Williams now argues.
The city has hired Cheshire attorney Nicole Chomiak of Nuzzo & Roberts law firm to defend the case. City corporation counsel Victor Bolden had this to say about the case: “The City denies the allegations made in this lawsuit, but will respond more fully at the appropriate time.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit declined to comment. They are Officers Bruce Bonner, Shafiq Abdussabur, Craig Alston, Malcolm Davis Jr., Milt Jackson, Albert McFadden Jr., Samson Reed, Mitchell Strickland, Rahgue Tennant, and Timothy Wilson.
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
Then-Chief James Lewis salutes a newly-minted sergeant at a 2009 promotions ceremony.
According to Williams, his Nov. 25, 2011 complaint, and government meeting minutes, here’s what happened in the case:
In April 4 and 18, 2009, the 10 plaintiffs were among the cops who took the written and oral portions of the sergeant promotions exam. They were also among the 33 officers to score above the 70 percent passing grade. The majority of officers on the resulting eligibility list were African-American. Click here to see the list.
On July 14, 2009, the New Haven Civil Service Board met to consider and approve the list, so that the Board of Police Commissioners could begin using it for promotions. During the meeting, according to the complaint, “members of the [Civil Service] Board explicitly stated that they were troubled by the fact that a majority of the persons on the list were African-American and that none of the persons on the list were Latino. At that time, the Board expressly agreed that the list would be allowed to expire after only one year solely for the purpose of limiting the number of African-Americans who could be promoted tot he rank of Police Sergeant and increasing the likelihood that Latinos would receive such promotions.”
Minutes from the July 14 meeting reflect that board members did discuss the matter of race in the promotions list: “Commissioner Jim Segaloff expressed his concern that this exam resulted in no Hispanics passing. Commissioner Massaro expressed that she was uncomfortable with the fact that no Hispanics passed the exam.”
Commissioner Jim Segaloff, the chair of the board, did not return calls for comment. Click here to read minutes from the July 14 meeting.
According to the minutes, Attorney Bolden said at the meeting that there was “insufficient evidence of disparate impact” of the test on Latino test takers.
The board approved the list unanimously, then took a second vote to determine its expiration date. The board voted unanimously to set the list to expire in one year, according to the minutes.
“The Board expressly agreed that the list would be allowed to expire after only one year solely for the purpose of limiting the number of African-Americans who could be promoted to the rank of Police Sergeant and increasing the likelihood that Latinos would receive such promotions,” Williams wrote in his complaint.
He acknowledged that the minutes of the July 14, 2009 Civil Service Board meeting do not mention African-Americans, only Latinos. “People were there” in the room and know the complete version of what was said, Williams said.
Before 2009, the police department’s promotion-eligibility lists had always been “effective for a total period of two years, computed in one-year increments,” the complaint states. “It’s not codified, but it has been the unvarying practice,” Williams said.
After one year, on July 14, 2010, the promotions eligibility list expired. By that point, 12 officers — white and black—had been promoted off of it. But the 10 black cops now suing the city were not among them.
On July 13, 2010, one day before the list was to expire, Officer Bruce Bonner, now the lead plaintiff on the current lawsuit, showed up at a meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners to inquire whether the sergeants promotions list was to be “automatically continued,” according to minutes from that meeting. The commission said it would refer the question to then-Chief Frank Limon. He was not at the meeting, but in New Orleans at a conference, according to the minutes. Click here to read the minutes from the meeting.
Contacted this week, commission Chair Rick Epstein said he could not recall what came of that referral. “I don’t have a recollection as we sit here.”
Unlike in the Ricci case, the Civil Service Board did not throw out the test results completely. Instead the board members made a “Solomonic decision” to try to split the difference between tossing them and keeping them for the standard two years: they kept them for only one year.
“What they tried to do is be cute about it,” Williams said.
“They thought that was the way they could get around Ricci,” Williams said. The board “deviated from standard practice” on the basis of race, which has been shown by the Ricci case to be a violation of the law, he said.
Williams said his clients are “very upset” by the board’s actions, “as anybody would be.”
“We live in a meritocracy,” he said. Whenever someone is denied something on the basis of skin color, “it drives you crazy.”
Williams said he’s “very confident” that his case will be successful, especially after the Ricci decision.
“I find it very difficult to differentiate this case from the Ricci case.”
There's a second element of possible claims of racism here: if the black officers are denied the same judgment that the white officers in the Ricci case received, there will be questions.