Mount Prospect denies officer's discrimination complaint
A Mount Prospect police officer has lost his appeal on discrimination claims filed earlier this year, but a village official said police department leaders hope to work with the officer to address issued raised in his complaint.
In a four-page ruling handed down Nov. 13, Assistant Village Manager David Strahl writes that an investigation into the claims by Officer Johmel Henderson found no evidence that he was assigned an unsatisfactory patrol car and denied a place in the department's investigations rotation because he is black.
However, Strahl said he was disturbed by claims Henderson made in his appeal suggesting that fellow officers made “racial jokes and innuendos” toward him in regards to a bulletin board posting the officer found offensive.
“To that end I would request that you work with police management to undertake the lead in developing an in service training program to educate co-workers regarding the inappropriate behavior,” Strahl writes in the ruling obtained by the Daily Herald through an open-records request. “There is no excuse for this type of behavior and there apparently is a need to reinforce the fact that comments can be hurtful and re-define the meaning of cooperative behavior. Your insight into this type of education would be invaluable.”
Henderson declined to comment on the findings, citing privacy concerns.
The officer initially filed his complaint in March, alleging he was discriminated against when the department assigned patrol vehicles and chose officers to serve in an investigations rotation. The complaint was rejected by village officials, leading to his appeal.
The appeal, filed in April, raised a new allegation regarding Henderson's treatment in the department. According to his claim, someone posted a dispatch sheet on a department bulletin board in 2009 detailing a citizen's report that a “male black, gray sweatshirt with hood sitting in the middle of the street in a lawn chair pointing some type of device at cars as they drive by.”
The person referred to in the call was Henderson, who at the time of the citizen's call was wearing plain clothes and using a radar gun as part of a traffic detail.
According to Henderson, the sheet remained on the bulletin board until January 2014 and led to “many racial comments.”
In his ruling, Strahl writes that Henderson never complained about the posting or other officers' remarks until March 2014. When Henderson informed department leadership, the dispatch sheet was removed from the bulletin board, and leaders now routinely inspect bulletin boards for potentially offensive materials, Strahl writes.
“It was very unfortunate that the village or police management was not notified promptly so the (posting) issue could have been addressed in a timely manner,” Strahl writes. “You have been encouraged in the past to notify the village or police management of such issues when they arise so that prompt remediation can occur and that remains in place.”
Another officer who filed a discrimination complaint this year, Det. Lee Schaps, has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Schaps, who was the department's first Hispanic detective, alleges he has been passed over for promotional opportunities because of his race.
Strahl said the village would be responding to the complaint through its attorney.