Black officers awarded 1.6 million because of racial discrimination. Put it up full mass. Isn't it ironic that black people in policing are experiencing the same racism that black [00:00:19] people who are not police experience? Jaree McPherson and Gerald Sams. Two black Texas state troopers were awarded $1.6 million by a federal jury that found they were in fact [00:00:38] harassed. They were in fact passed over for promotions. And they were in fact retaliated against all because they happen to be black. They alleged that their supervisors in the [00:00:58] Texas Department of Public Safety subjected them to unlawful and discriminatory employment practices over multiple years in their lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2020 in a US District Court in Austin. The court documents were obtained by Atlanta Black Star. Atlanta [00:01:21] Black Star did a great job reporting on this. I'll put them up. You have a Sam's a 26 year old veteran. Okay, 26 year, excuse me, not year old, a 26 year veteran. served in the mounted patrol unit of DPS. He's been in that unit since 2014. You're talking about a career season [00:01:42] law enforcement professional. So 2014 and developed the written manual for the unit's operational procedures. He literally wrote the book on operations for the department, literally. He always received quote, meets expectations. or better ratings on his annual job performance evaluations. [00:02:04] That's a lot of evaluations in 26 years. He claimed that in October of 2017, he was falsely accused of making questionable leadership decisions by allegedly overworking the white officers [00:02:23] within the unit. and was then demoted by a white patrol chief without ever being provided any evidence to support the demotion. Isn't that something? Ironically, the black person with [00:02:41] authority disaccused. of making white people do too much work, who happen to be cops. Now keep in mind, if you are an officer, you get paid per hour. So I'm sure whatever the workload [00:03:00] may have been, everybody's getting compensated. And that was part of the discrimination claim, that he did not overwork a particular group. ah If he did, he will be the one that would have been sued. the white cops because obviously that's the thing too now. So put it up. So [00:03:18] a year later, one year after that, white lieutenant accused him of attempting to turn the mounted patrol unit into a Buffalo soldiers unit. Now if you know anything about Buffalo soldiers, they are black. So basically he's saying you're blacking the place up. Okay, so an allegation [00:03:44] that he denied and found racially offensive. Then in November 2017, a DPS commander named Joe Ortiz, allegedly told Sam's quote, can you see what the perception is with all these African Americans that are on the mounted unit? Question, while Sam's was trimming a horse's hoof. Captain [00:04:05] Jeremiah Richards took a photo of him and texted it to his friend. Then laughs as he read his friends response aloud, quote, I have never seen a black man doing that before. I'll put it back up again, put it back up for a man. [00:04:23] The man is a 26 year damn veteran of the police. Been there since 2014. All of that professional courtesy that he has earned means nothing in the face of bigotry. All of the friendships [00:04:44] that he believes he has, all of the respect that is uh given to him superficially means absolutely nothing contextualized in the reality of bigotry. Now, in September 2018, Sam's, [00:05:02] then a corporal, applied for a promotion to an open sergeant position. And the department selected a less experienced white male with less seniority and also less qualification, [00:05:21] the lawsuit said. Major Katie Conley later stated in an OIG interview that Richards, who chaired the interview board, intentionally interfered. with and obstructed Sam's from being chosen. [00:05:40] In July 2019, Sam's applied for another open sergeant position, which was filed by a person with no experience with horses or the mounted unit. The complaint contended. Now what Ms. Conley is saying is that, gotta read between the lines, the board approved him. The board [00:05:58] approved him to be sergeant, but the chair of the board interfered with the process. Sam's also complained in the suit of a hostile work environment evidenced by racially offensive and derogatory comments and conduct by his white colleagues. They included allegedly unfounded [00:06:17] allegations that he abused horses with a bullwhip and a text he received from a white female trooper containing a meme featuring Harambe, the gorilla. Made famous in 2016 when he was [00:06:32] killed after a black child entered his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. He gets death threats now. Also the other officer, McPherson, put him up. McPherson received harsher evaluation, [00:06:51] harsher treatment than his white coworkers from supervisors, according to the claim, causing him to file a racial discrimination complaint with the EEOC office that took place October 2019 and to seek a transfer to Austin CID division. His new supervisor, Captain Mark [00:07:09] Konick, who is white, allegedly told officers that McPherson's discrimination complaint was quote BS and frequently denigrated him to white coworkers. Then that same supervisor, that captain, denied McPherson's efforts to be placed on the elite 7C2 County Surveillance Unit, [00:07:31] a career enhancing assignment. So the captain told him he needed to first spend time in the 7C1 unit to gain experience investigating crime in Austin. The 7C1 unit, which was then comprised of only individuals of color and an immigrant, was given more difficult and onerous task [00:07:54] permitting fewer days off and was treated less favorably than the all white 7-2C unit. the complaint alleged after McPherson spent a few months in the 7C1. The CID commander signed [00:08:10] a white employee to 7C2 who had no investigative experience, no counter surveillance experience and who was substantially less qualified and less experienced than McPherson, the complaint says. So what is 7C1 to 7C2? The black group, the black and brown group. And then the other [00:08:28] one is the white group. Okay, that's what it is. All right, all right, so McPherson. Further alleged in 2020, a white male supervisor circulated photos depicting a white lieutenant wearing a Hitler mustache and black socks with an inspection of black socks with an inscription excuse [00:08:48] me of black socks matter, mocking the Black Lives Matter movement. This occurred as a town officers in his unit were directly involved in public protests over the murder of Mr. Floyd. McPherson. was not transferred to the all white 7C2 unit until shortly after he [00:09:12] submitted a written complaint of race discrimination on June 20th, 2020, the lawsuit said. In his motion to dismiss the case in 2023, the defendants claimed that McPherson did not face racial discrimination from supervisors and had initially hurt his chances for promotion by lying to [00:09:31] a supervisor. After a three week trial on January 29th, the jury found that both plaintiffs had proved that they were harassed because of their race and that DPS had failed to take prompt remedial action. They awarded McPherson $62,500 in economic loss for the denial of his service [00:09:48] vehicle and $725,000 for past and future suffering and anguish. The jury did not find that Sams was denied a promotion due to his race and gave him nothing for economic loss, but did award him, get this, uh 175,000 for past and future emotional suffering and anguish. The total [00:10:09] amount awarded to the jury was 1.6 plus million. They have defunded the police by way of the police. And it wasn't just the discrimination, it was also the lack of remedial effort to respond to the discrimination that mattered in the case and will matter in any case where [00:10:26] discrimination is at play. Sharon, thoughts here? Yeah, it's always like I call it the cover up. You just do the right thing. It's so easy. You know what the right thing is. Even if you have some of the same thoughts since birth, perhaps the way you were raised, [00:10:41] you know what's wrong. And more than that, you know, it's illegal, but you did it anyway. And so, yeah. So now money's going to be paid, but not out of their pockets, out of everyday people who did not do this conduct. And that's the part that's stopped. I want individual [00:10:58] stock to face these consequences lose their livelihood, not be promising tomorrow while they play with what they kind of look at as monopoly money. That's right. And once again, this is why bad cops, corrupt leadership in government in particular is bad for everybody. [00:11:19] All right. I will bring up this as they develop.