Fired officer continues fight for his job in court
Kevin Morgan II believes the color of his skin is the reason he no longer is a Columbus police officer.
In September 2015, Morgan, who is Black, was fired from his job on the recommendation of then-police Chief Kim Jacobs.
The Division of Police said the firing was based on an internal investigation that found Morgan had failed to properly report hours when he worked a special duty job outside his regular shifts as a Columbus police officer.
Morgan says that he did nothing wrong.
“They didn't investigate my case thoroughly. What it boiled down to was the color of my my skin,” Morgan said.
Morgan is fighting to get his job back with a pending suit in federal court which contends that he is the victim of discriminatory and unfair treatment by the city of Columbus.
The city of Columbus asked for the case to be dismissed, but U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley recently denied the city's request to end the suit. The city is appealing the ruling to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The main contention in Morgan's suit is that there were many other cases involving white officers who were brought up on departmental charges involving time falsification. In nearly all of the cases, the suit contends, white officers kept their jobs.
In his ruling, Judge Marbley said he found the city's argument “unpersuasive” in distinguishing Morgan's failure to report to his special duty assignment compared to “other officers' misrepresentations about time worked on their regular duty shifts.”
Marbley, who cited five similar disciplinary cases involving white officers in his ruling, found that the city did not demonstrate that the “white officers' conduct was less serious.”
Morgan's attorney, Fred Gittes, believes that Morgan's case is important for understanding the problems of racism within the division. Gittes has a long history of representing Black police officers in lawsuits against the city of Columbus. In the 1970s, he won a federal court decision that forced the city of Columbus to promote Black officers.
Recently, the city of Columbus approved a $475,000 settlement for Karl Shaw, another Black police officer who said that he was discriminated against by fellow officers and blocked from assignments within the division.
When Gittes and Shaw appeared for a recent Columbus City Council meeting vote to approve the settlement, Gittes also brought along Morgan to tell the council about that case.
The Morgan case is also an important one for the public, Gittes said.
“Because if the Columbus police department has overt discrimination of people of color, imagine how they react when officers are in the street dealing with Black citizens,” Gittes said.
Morgan, 47, joined the Columbus police division in 2002 and worked as a patrol officer. “I always wanted to be a police officer,” Morgan said, adding that he loved his job.
The circumstances of his dismissal began in 2013, when Morgan accepted a job working one day a week on special duty for the Stratford Lakes apartments on the Southeast Side.
Morgan said that the apartment complex management was flexible about which day he would work.
However, the city relieved Morgan from duty and assigned him to the administrative office in November 2013 when a manager at Stratford Lakes called Columbus police, saying he was not on duty.
The city initiated a criminal inquiry of Morgan. The apartment manager didn't want to press charges and told the city that she did want the special duty officer at the complex to vary their hours, court records show.
Morgan contended that the reporting problem concerned a supervisor failing to keep track of his hours.
The Franklin County prosecutor's office declined to prosecute the case, but the police administration pursued an internal investigation. Nearly two years later, in September 2015, Morgan was fired.
The city of Columbus found that Morgan didn't properly report special duty hours with the radio room on days when he worked at the complex. The internal investigation said that Morgan didn't properly report for 11 days and five half-days of special duty work, court records show.
Morgan said that he worked the hours and would make up the time if he didn't report for a scheduled shift.
After a hearing, Jacobs hand wrote a recommendation to fire Morgan, which was upheld by George Speaks, who was then acting as the city public safety director.
Meanwhile, two white sergeants were found through an internal investigation to have falsely reported that they were on duty — one of them for 19 days and the other for 23 days. Both were suspended but didn't lose their jobs, court records show
Three other cases against white officers involved taking leave without permission, falsely claiming leave slips were submitted, and not being on post for significant periods. None of those officers lost their jobs, court records state.
Gittes said he believes those cases were certainly more serious in terms of money improperly earned and deceit involved. He also noted that Morgan was put on administrative duty for a year and 10 months — giving up his gun and badge. He said white officers spent only a few weeks on administrative duty.
When Jacobs was named Columbus police chief in 2012, Gittes said he was excited because he believed she would be more sympathetic about issues of discrimination.
However, Gittes said that he was disappointed by how Jacobs handled the discipline of officers, and the Morgan case is a prime example.
Jacobs, who retired in early 2019, said that she cannot comment on the case involving Morgan because the case is still pending. But she said that when applying discipline, she tried to handle “every case on its merits with the evidence available and do the right thing.”
Morgan said the loss of his Columbus police job brought financial hardship as he was unemployed for a year. He now lives in Lancaster and works as security officer. jwoods@dispatch.com @Woodsnight.