Firing over racial slur is upheld

But judge lets LR officer stay on job while appeal plays out

A Pulaski County circuit judge Wednesday upheld the firing of a Little Rock police officer whose drunken use of a racial slur was broadcast on the Internet.

The decision allows the officer of 2 1 ⁄ years to remain

2 on duty until his appeal of the ruling to a higher court is resolved.

Police Chief Stuart Thomas fired David Michael Edgmon in August 2010. Edgmon, 26, appealed to the Little Rock Civil Service Commission. In a November 2010 hearing, the agency’s five members unanimously agreed with the Little Rock Police Department’s findings that Edgmon had violated department regulations, but the panel overturned the chief’s decision to fire Edgmon and imposed a 30-day unpaid suspension by a 3-2 vote.

In a rare move, the Police Department in December 2010 challenged in circuit court the commission’s decision to overturn the firing, putting the issue before Judge Tim Fox. His ruling Wednesday, after a 2 1 ⁄ 2- hour hearing, reinstates Edgmon’s firing. Following common practice, Fox stayed his ruling, which leaves Edgmon on the job until he either appeals the decision or decides to accept the ruling, a process that could take at least a month.

Fox was called on to decide whether firing was appropriate punishment for Edgmon, who had been on the force about 15 months at the time of the March 2010 incident in the River Market outside Ernie Biggs bar at 307 President Clinton Ave.

Both sides agreed on the essential facts of the case: Edgmon was drunk but off duty and out of uniform when he used a derogatory term — jigaboo — and showed his badge during a late-night encounter with a group of men, most of whom were black. One of the men recorded the incident and posted the 90-second video on YouTube the next day. The discovery of the video by police in May 2010 sparked an internal police investigation that led to Edgmon’s August 2010 firing.

Edgmon, who has apologized, also admitted he had

done wrong, agreeing with the findings of the department and the Civil Service Commission that he was guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer, being intoxicated in public and performing actions that led to criticism of the department.

The dispute for the judge to resolve was whether firing Edgmon was excessive punishment and unfair, compared with the punishment of officers who had used racial slurs or whose drunken behavior had drawn public scrutiny.

Testifying Wednesday, Thomas said he considered suspension, but decided that given the public nature of Edgmon’s actions and the “exceptionally poor judgment” the officer displayed, concluded that firing Edgmon was best for the department.

“I felt the best situation ... was to separate Mr. Edgmon from employment at the department,” Thomas told the judge during his 33 minutes on the witness stand.

Thomas testified that Edgmon was not only wrong to have used the word, but the officer showed further poor judgment by being drunk in public, showing his badge during an off-duty encounter in public and choosing to confront men he believed to be committing a crime by possessing marijuana.

Edgmon’s behavior and the public scrutiny it has drawn to the police force was a singular event in his 7 ⁄ year tenure as police chief, said Thomas, a 33-year veteran of the department. He said Edgmon’s display was “thoroughly embarrassing” and “insulting,” calling into question the department’s ability to enforce the law without bias.

Questioned by Edgmon’s attorney, Robert Newcomb, Thomas acknowledged that he has had officers who have used racial slurs and been drunk in public before who have been suspended but not fired. But the disciplinary procedure is “not a cookiecutter process,” Thomas said, saying the actions of each offending officer must be considered with weight given to the nature of the incident and the context of how the officer in question acted.

Thomas was pressed by Newcomb to explain why two other police officers had not been fired when one was convicted for drunken driving in a city car and another had used the term “porch monkey” with a prisoner. The “porch monkey” incident did not occur in public, Thomas said, and he thought the punishments of the two officers had been appropriate and had corrected their behavior.

Questioned by the judge, Thomas said the Edgmon case is the only time the Police Department has challenged civil-service disciplinary sanctions that he is aware of. But the challenge was necessary, Thomas said, because of the “significant impact on the community perception of the department.”

Edgmon was the first officer he has fired for using a racial slur in such a public manner, Thomas testified, saying the firing was done to send a message to his officers.

The video , ava i l - able at youtube. com/ watch?v = uo3uktqdmvq, was played in court. In the video, Edgmon asks a group gathered on the sidewalk, “Who’s blowing f****** weed in my face?” a reference to marijuana. He looks at the camera and waves, eventually ordering someone to “get this illegal product f****** jigaboo s*** out of my f****** face.”

As Edgmon walks away, someone in the crowd can be heard yelling, “That ain’t no way to be a police officer.” Near the end of the video, voices can be heard discussing whether the word “jigaboo” is racist, and Edgmon can be heard asserting that he’s not racist. The word has been considered a racial insult specific to black people for at least 100 years, with some scholars theorizing the term is derived from a word from the Congo region of Africa that means meek or servile.

Edgmon, wearing a gray suit and yellow tie in the courtroom Wednesday, pointed out to the judge that he did not direct the word at a person, but used it only to describe what he thought to be marijuana.

Edgmon said he did not know jigaboo was a racial slur, testifying that he only knew the word was considered derogatory. He said he’d never used it before.

“I did not understand it was racially offensive in that manner,” he said.

Also testifying Wednesday were Edgmon’s three supervisors — Sgt. Van Watson, Lt. James Arnold and Assistant Chief Wayne Bewley. All three men reviewed the findings of an internal investigation and all three recommended that Edgmon be fired. Watson and Arnold are black and Bewley is white.

“He did an injustice to the entire Police Department,” Watson testified.