2 ex-police recruits sue LR over firings for racial slurs
Little Rock police recruits — a white man and a black woman both fired for using a racial slur on Facebook before joining the force — are suing the city, claiming they were unfairly singled out for termination.
Brandon Schiefelbein and Katina Jones are asking Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox to make the city give them their jobs back plus back pay. The suit states their firings were unreasonably harsh punishment compared with other police officers and city employees accused of similar conduct.
Schiefelbein and Jones contend that their firing violates the Arkansas Civil Rights Act and free-speech protections in the state constitution.
Their lawsuit, filed on Thursday, comes after their attorney, Bob Newcomb, unsuccessfully petitioned City Manager Bruce Moore, Mayor Mark Stodola and the city Board of Directors to overturn the decision to fire them. Defendants are the city itself and Police Chief Kenton Buckner.
The suit claims that police officers who made “disrespectful” social media posts about President Barack Obama were not fired, even though those messages “raised concerns” with the U.S. Secret Service, the agency that provides security for U.S. presidents.
The suit also draws a comparison between how Schiefelbein and Jones were disciplined with how a Fire Department battalion chief was given a 72-hour suspen-
sion for Facebook postings that “any reasonable person would find offensive to women,” particularly since he was a department supervisor who had women in his command.
The suit also claims that Buckner, who made the decision to fire Schiefelbein and Jones, “personally approves of the use of” the racial slur, as evidenced by his defense of an interview with musician 21 Savage that was published on the Police Department’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
“The defendant Buckner, while exercising his right to listen to a music that others would find offensive, punished the plaintiffs for language that he listens to and likes,” the suit states.
The suit describes 21 Savage’s music as glorifying “drive-by shooting, anti-police positions and [has] used the [‘n***a’] word, plus making … derogatory remarks concerning women.”
The Fraternal Order of Police complained about the July interview, which was conducted by Victoria Brown, the department’s public affairs coordinator, while she was attending the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives conference with members of the department’s executive staff.
In an email sent to the entire department to explain the post, the chief made no explicit endorsement of any profane language. Buckner described the 21 Savage interview as a way for law enforcement to reach out to young people through popular music, a technique that had been encouraged at the conference.
“I am a huge rap music fan. However, I am not wearing my music hat for this post,” Buckner wrote in the email sent to the entire department. “Now, I realize much of the anger came from photos of 21 Savage online depicting what many police would consider violent images. However, Victoria advised he said ‘it’s cool to be a police officer.’ What some of us find distasteful, others find cool, inspiring, humorous or artistic.”
The Fraternal Order of Police leadership said many of 21 Savage’s song lyrics are “disgusting and inflammatory,” and the interview was removed from the department’s social media accounts after the police group complained.
Citing 21 Savage’s music
and Facebook photographs, the group drew comparisons between him and Finese2Tymes, the musician whom authorities have implicated in the Power Ultra Lounge mass shooting that wounded 25 people in downtown Little Rock in July.
The way the word was used by Jones and Schiefelbein was in the context of a quote, their suit states. Jones’ post was made when she was 16, almost 10 years ago, containing song lyrics, while Schiefelbein was 19 when he quoted black comedian Kevin Hart.
The suit says Schiefelbein removed his post before his accuser, unnamed in the lawsuit, complained about it to police, describing that accuser as someone who “posted similar language and then lied in his Internal Affairs investigation.”
Other recruits were allowed to “clean up” their Facebook posts without reprisal, while Schiefelbein was fired even though he had already removed his post, according to the lawsuit. Black officers who used the slur were investigated but not fired, the suit states.
Jones was fired in January just as she had successfully completed the recruitment process. Her Facebook was password protected so whoever
turned the information over to the Police Department had to get it illegally, the lawsuit states.
Buckner knew the material was illegally obtained but still used it in his decision to fire Jones, faulting her for not deleting the questionable post after he had ordered recruits to delete objectionable material from their social media accounts, according to the suit.
The public scrutiny into recruits’ social media postings began in November when the Little Rock Black Police Officers Association brought Schiefelbein’s June 2013 Facebook post to public attention when group leaders urged the chief to fire him.
By that time, Schiefelbein was already under an internal-affairs investigation over a complaint about his Facebook post. The association had earlier accused Buckner’s administration of favoring white officers and limiting the disciplinary authority of black supervisors.
Last year, Schiefelbein’s attorney said, another recruit, Brandon Gurley, complained about his client’s post to police leadership, despite Gurley’s own use — multiple times — of the slur on social media. Gurley, who is black, and Schiefelbein were fired together in December.
Sgt. Willie Davis, the vice president of the Little Rock Black Police Officers Association, was subsequently suspended for two weeks. Davis said he was punished for informing the association about Schiefelbein’s post instead of a department supervisor.