Filing: Deny Starks look at chief report

Unrelated to ex-officer’s suit, it says

A former Little Rock police officer who claims he was forced to quit by Mayor Frank Scott Jr. and Police Chief Kieth Humphrey is not entitled to see the results of a human resources investigation of the chief, lawyers for Scott and Humphrey claim in court filings Wednesday.

Charles Starks, who was fired after fatally shooting a car-theft suspect then reinstated on the police force at court order, is suing Scott, Humphrey and the city, claiming Scott and Humphrey, angry that he had won his job back, retaliated against him in violation of his civil rights.

His attorney, Robert Newcomb, has called on the court to require the city to disclose the investigation findings because the probe might have turned up evidence that Starks could use in his suit.

Bill Mann, an attorney representing Scott and Humphrey, urged the presiding judge, Chip Welch, to rebuff Newcomb’s demand, stating the investigation is unrelated to Starks’ accusations against the mayor and chief.

Mann further notes that Newcomb was rebuffed in an earlier attempt to get a copy

of the report through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act because the findings are considered a job performance review, which the law requires be kept secret from the public, except in limited circumstances.

City officials have not decided what to do with the findings — said to be in the form of a 25-page report and about 5,000 pages of supplemental documents — Mann states. A copy can be provided for the judge to review if he wants to see for himself that the report has no bearing on Starks’ case as long as provisions are in place to keep the materials from ever being made public, according to Mann.

Since April 2020, eight officers have accused the chief of retaliation, and Newcomb asserts the human resource findings could be relevant since Starks’ accusations against Humphrey involve retaliation and hostile work environment complaints.

Starks was fired by Humphrey in May 2019, 2½ months after Starks fatally shot Bradley Blackshire, a car-theft suspect, in a confrontation in a west Little Rock parking lot. Starks says he acted in self-defense because Blackshire was trying to kill him.

Starks was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by prosecutors, and all of Starks’ supervisors recommended that he be cleared of procedural wrongdoing. Humphrey also did not fault Starks’ use of force in his decision to terminate him.

But the chief found that Starks had broken an officer-safety order prohibiting police from deliberately getting in front of a moving car. Starks appealed his termination to circuit court.

The presiding judge, Tim Fox, agreed with the chief that Starks had violated police procedure but ruled that firing was too severe. In reaching his conclusion that Starks should be reinstated, Fox noted that the officer’s decision to use deadly force was never an is- sue in the decision to fire him.

The judge ordered that Starks be returned to the force, reducing the punishment to a 30-day unpaid suspension and pay cut. The judge also ordered the city to reimburse Starks $28,177 for his lost wages and benefits.

Fox ordered Starks reinstated in January 2020. Starks twice returned to court to complain that the department had been mistreating him since his reinstatement, leading to the judge threatening to hold the city, chief and mayor in contempt.

Starks filed his current lawsuit in May 2020 then resigned from the department in September 2020, complaining his return to work had been made “intolerable.”