Upstart union members want resignation of president
Amid new revelations about a racist text scandal involving the president of their union, a small group of Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies Friday called on Deputy Don Morrissey to resign and for the group to reconsider its endorsement of the challenger in the upcoming sheriff’s race.
The union has endorsed retired undersheriff John Hirokawa, rather than five-term incumbent Sheriff Laurie Smith, who was forced earlier this month into her first runoff in November since taking office 20 years ago.
The contingent of at least 20 union upstarts have threatened to leave the union and also called on the union’s vice president, Roger Winslow, to step down.
The group makes up only about 5 percent of the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association’s membership. But its insurgent stance highlights the shadow that the popular president’s involvement in the texting scandal is casting over the association — and the political opportunity it provides Smith to discredit her opposition.
Morrissey was catapulted back into the spotlight this week, about six months after this news organization reported that Smith had stripped him of his sergeant’s stripes for failing to report that jail guards he worked with were exchanging vile racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic slurs, including images of swastikas and Ku Klux Klan members in pointy white hats. He took the matter to arbitration and lost.
Morrissey has appealed the arbitrator’s decision upholding his demotion, and in doing so, brought
renewed attention to the scandal and exposed more texts to public view.
The latest trove of repugnant missives, first reported by Metro, confirmed that Morrissey may not have written any of the texts, but he was aware of at least some of them.
For instance, the court file contained a report by an investigator, who noted that Morrissey wrote “Hahaha” in response to a lower-ranking deputy’s text, which contained a racist slur against African-Americans. The text read, “Child molester and a (racist slur)??? Justified shoot.”
“The capacity that the president is in, he cannot be involved in any hate speech. He can say that it’s dark humor, but you have to be culturally aware,” said Sgt. LaMond Davis, who is among the union members calling for Morrissey to renounce his position. “It’s not just offensive to me as an African American, it’s offensive to everyone in the department. You cannot be involved in that kind of speech and represent a diverse union.”
Smith previously demoted Morrissey from lieutenant to sergeant after investigators concluded
he viewed pornography on a work computer and tried to persuade an employee to conceal the evidence.
Morrissey could not be reached for comment. But earlier this week, he resigned his position as secretary of the Peace Officers Research Association of California. He also defended himself Thursday in an email to DSA’s 443 members.
In the email, he alleged that the revival of the texting scandal was politically motivated, saying “Smith has nothing to offer but to resurrect a series of text messages sent in 2014 through 2015 that I have previously strongly condemned and reflected on soberly with regret and motivation to learn from.”
Winslow said Friday that he was aware of a “vocal minority” making the resignation call, and described them as Smith loyalists. But he also said the union is always willing to hear any members’ concerns.
“People want to discuss the issue. We’ll hear what the issues are and we’ll see how we move forward,” Winslow said. “The (DSA) board has not met to discuss any of this, so it’s premature to comment further.”
Morrissey supporters noted that the DSA’s criticism of what they consider to be Smith’s punitive leadership style predated the texts scandal and has not changed.
Hirokawa contends that anger over Morrissey’s conduct is being used inappropriately to taint the union’s endorsement of his campaign.
“As a membership, they endorsed me. What have I done wrong? I’m not a racist texter. I’ve never excused racist texts,” he said. “Trying to link me to his behavior, to his discipline, is unfair.”
The text messages were discovered about three years ago in the course of an unrelated sheriff’s investigation into a deputy suspected of sharing confidential police information with a known member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. The texts outraged the community and followed the death of a mentally ill inmate at the hands of three jail guards who were later convicted of murder.
Texts that surfaced in 2015 referred to Vietnamese as “g—,’’ Jews as “k—,’’ and black people as “n—” and “yard apes.” In the latest batch to become public, about eight deputies, including a former correctional union president who was fired, made numerous references to the prominent black slur and other thinly veiled bigoted remarks like “Happy Birthday, Buckwheat.”
In his appeal of the arbitrator’s decision, Morrissey contended he was denied the opportunity to mount a privacy and First Amendment defense. He noted that he did not write any racist texts and that the messages, which investigators said were sent both on- and offduty, came to his private cellphone. Others were disciplined in the course of the investigation, including former Sgt. Lance Scimeca, then president of the correctional deputies’ union, who was fired.
For Davis, that logic doesn’t hold up when it comes to earning the trust of the communities they serve.
“That notion of on-duty, off-duty, I don’t think that flies at all,” he said. “We’re held to a higher standard. You can’t just take your cop shirt off. People see us as cops 24/7.”