Almost two years after the incident that spawned a Little Rock police sergeant's 30-day suspension, the civil service commission overturned the punishment Thursday, saying the city did not prove that the officer neglected his duty.
The Little Rock Police Department will pay Sgt. Derrick Threadgill for the 30 days he was suspended without pay in 2017. The decision came after almost eight hours of testimony and deliberations spread over two civil service commission meetings.
The Police Department said Threadgill's punishment was for dereliction of duty stemming from a domestic violence incident in 2016.
On Dec. 22, 2016, a woman said her highly intoxicated ex-husband threatened her with a gun, assaulted her and threatened to kill her, according to multiple people testifying during the hearing. When officers arrived, they found no evidence of physical harm and no witnesses to corroborate the woman's allegations, though officers did find a handgun in the man's pocket, Threadgill said.
Threadgill, who was the senior sergeant on the shift for that evening, did not go to the scene and instead advised officers while he worked on another file in the office.
Though the woman told police that she had called 911 to her P Street home because of domestic violence with the same man previously, a look at police archives showed no previous incidents at that area, Threadgill said.
That, Threadgill said, coupled with the lack of physical harm and witnesses, led him to think that there may not be enough probable cause for an arrest. And, importantly, officers could not interview the only other person there, he said.
Multiple officers testified that it is the department's policy not to interview intoxicated suspects, which the ex-husband clearly was, according to written accounts of the incident.
"You don't want to get a statement from someone who is intoxicated," Lt. Brian Grigsby said during the hearing. "They could contest it and say they didn't know what they were saying, and it wouldn't be admissible in court."
Without physical evidence of harm and witnesses, and without being able to immediately interview the alleged assailant, Threadgill made the call to arrest the man on a charge of public intoxication and an existing warrant, said Lucien Gillham, Threadgill's attorney.
Threadgill posited throughout his testimony Thursday that his actions were supported by the department's written general orders and rules, citing exact statutes multiple times during Thursday's hearing.
"I did not feel there was enough probable cause at that time, that's why I did not charge him with aggravated assault on a family or household member," Threadgill said.
Threadgill said one of the considerations an officer must take into account is the safety of the victim.
"They were safe, because he was gone," Threadgill said. "He was taken in on a warrant and a [public intoxication] charge. ... He was taken away from the scene, and they were safe."
Threadgill said his 24 years as a police officer and his knowledge of the department's policy informed his decision, and that given the same circumstances, he would make the same call for the same arrest. Threadgill said aggravated assault charges could have been filed after the incident, if the woman had given a written statement, which she declined to do.
This judgment call -- what charges the man should have been arrested on -- was at the crux of the decision to suspend Threadgill. In the commission's first hearing on the matter on Oct. 11, officers said the man should have been charged with aggravated assault because of the existence of the weapon and the department's aggressive stance on domestic violence arrests.
Threadgill, however, said if the department believed his charges were not appropriate for the alleged crime, officers could have amended the charges, which they did not.
Also, Gillham referred to other incidents where, in the absence of a witness or physical evidence of harm, no charges were immediately filed. In those incidents, Gillham said, the officer was not suspended or reprimanded at all.
"We get calls like [the Dec. 22, 2016, incident] all the time," Grigsby said. "If we arrested everybody who has accused somebody of something, the jails would be overflowing."
In the October testimony, former Police Chief Kenton Buckner said the fact that Threadgill did not go to the scene himself was also a reason for his suspension, but Threadgill said that as the senior sergeant on the shift, the department's general orders allow him to delegate some of his duties to other officers in order to manage multiple cases.
Threadgill is among four police officers who filed a federal lawsuit in March alleging racial and age discrimination against the department, saying that black officers were denied preferred positions, transfers and promotions, and were punished more readily than white officers were.
When asked if he believed racial discrimination was a factor in his suspension, Threadgill said he did.
"You would think that any competent executive who saw a 30-day suspension on someone who has never been suspended would say 'What is going on?'" Threadgill said. "But that's not how it works. ... I know how this game is played."
But outside of the incident itself, Ellen Smith, the attorney who represented the city, said Threadgill's reluctance to admit that he'd done wrong was also a factor in his discipline.
Buckner, who approved Threadgill's 30-day suspension, said in October that he believed "Sgt. Threadgill doesn't think he did anything wrong. That's a big problem to me."
Threadgill, however, said he was following the orders laid out by the Police Department.
"I've shown you the policy written down on paper," Threadgill said. "It's easy to sit here two years later and discuss this, but what I did was according to the policy and my own experience at this department."
Ultimately, civil service commissioner James Hudson said the city did not prove that Threadgill had neglected his duty.
"I commend you for speaking up," Hudson said after announcing the commission's ruling. "But I also recommend you take a step back. ... We have to move forward, and we have to do that together."
Metro on 12/21/2018