A Little Rock police officer who was fired after fatally shooting a car-theft suspect, then reinstated by a court order, sued Mayor Frank Scott Jr. and Police Chief Humphrey on Wednesday.
Charles Starks' 20-page lawsuit before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chip Welch accuses Scott and Humphrey of violating his civil rights by retaliating against him by subjecting him to a hostile work environment after the chief's decision to fire him was overturned.
"The actions taken against the plaintiff were done for the purpose of making his working conditions intolerable," the lawsuit states. "The actions of the defendants were done because of his successful petitioning of the circuit court ... [and] for the purpose of punishing him for the successful utilization of the courts to redress his grievances."
The lawsuit was filed a day after the department's Fraternal Order of Police chapter announced the membership, most of the police force, will vote on a no-confidence resolution against Humphrey, saying there is evidence the chief -- on the job for barely a year -- has "repeatedly misused or exceeded his authority, violated department policies, wrongfully attacked his subordinate officers, and tarnished hard-earned reputations in an attempt to evade accountability for his actions."
Humphrey, who has the support of the Black Police Officers Association, is already being sued over accusations that he has retaliated against officers, some of them his senior staff, because they have publicly contradicted him about the internal investigation that led to Starks' firing. Other litigation questions whether he exceeded his authority to help a female friend who is seeking a high-paying civilian job with the department.
The complaints about the chief have prompted Scott, a former banking executive who is about 17 months into his first term as the city's first elected black mayor, to propose that an independent review of the department's operations be conducted.
The city has yet to respond to any of the lawsuits against the chief, partly because of legal issues that require city officials to hire lawyers to represent him.
Starks is being represented by attorney Robert Newcomb, the lawyer who got him his job back. Starks seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.
Starks also wants the judge to make Humphrey and Scott pay for their own defense "and not burden the taxpayers with that financial obligation," plus a court order requiring the city to pay for Starks' defense in the federal wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of Bradley Blackshire.
Blackshire, 30, of Little Rock was killed by Starks in a February 2019 confrontation. Noting that Blackshire was awaiting trial on drug and gun charges, and had four felony convictions, Starks' lawsuit describes Blackshire as a "career criminal" who tried to mkill Starks by running him over in a stolen car, "a deadly weapon," despite Starks' repeated efforts to get Blackshire to surrender.
Starks, who was injured when he was hit by the vehicle, also points out that there was methamphetamine and a stolen gun in the vehicle, while an autopsy showed that Blackshire had meth and the hallucinogen PCP in his system.
But even knowing the kind of man Blackshire was and what he had been doing, the mayor and police chief took action against Starks, even after he had been cleared of criminal wrongdoing by prosecutors who deemed the shooting justified, the lawsuit states.
The mayor, "in a complete break from tradition made a personal condolence call" to the Blackshire family, according to the suit, which states that Starks believes the mayor "has a personal relationship of a friendly nature" with the family. Further proof of the city's enmity toward him is the fact that "contrary to normal practice," Little Rock has refused to pay for his defense in the Blackshire family's federal lawsuit, Starks states.
Starks was fired after an internal affairs investigation described in the suit as "short-circuited" and "rushed" by the mayor's demands that Starks be fired, a decision that the mayor made immediately following the shooting.
Starks appealed the chief's termination order and the resulting endorsement of his firing by the city Civil Service Commission, which resulted in a circuit judge overturning the firing decision. That judge, Timothy Fox, agreed with both the chief's determination that Starks had violated police procedure by stepping in front of a moving car and that Starks should be disciplined.
But since Starks' use of force was not at issue, Fox found termination to be too severe for a procedural violation. He ordered that Starks be subjected to the next highest penalty, a 30-day unpaid suspension, and ordered Starks' salary to be cut down to rookie wages. The judge also ordered the city to reimburse Starks for his lost wages.
Both Starks and the city are appealing the ruling.
Starks' lawsuit repeats grievances against the chief and mayor that Starks has already aired before Fox, with some elaboration. That includes his complaint to Fox that the chief had wrongfully denied him his gun and badge when he returned to work. The accusation resulted in Fox rebuking the chief with the warning that the chief would have to surrender his own gun and badge -- and the city fined $10,000 per day -- until Starks' gear was returned. Starks got his equipment back immediately.
Still pending before Fox, but included in the lawsuit, is Starks' complaint that he's being mistreated by being forced to work a series of temporary assignments, something he says the department has never done to any other officer.
He says his current assignment, desk officer at the 12th Street police station, is particularly hazardous because he's forced to interact with the public despite being the subject of threats of death and bodily harm because of the Blackshire shooting.
On top of that, the current job puts him under the supervision of officers he's complained about, according to the suit. One of them made racist remarks about him and other white officers and the other has lied about the circumstances of the fatal shooting that resulted in the internal affairs investigation that resulted in his firing, according to the lawsuit.
In response, city lawyers say that Starks never complained to police administrators about his supervisors or his work environment before calling on Fox to force them to give him a new duty assignment.
In his lawsuit, Starks further accuses the chief of deliberately flouting police regulations on work assignments to make sure that Starks has to work for a supervisor who doesn't like him.
Starks states that the chief deliberately lied at one point to state regulators at the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards "for the purpose of harassing and retaliating."
The suit also suggests that the chief has witnessed at least one Blackshire supporter commit the crime of terroristic threatening -- making threats on Starks' life -- but has done nothing about it.
The Starks suit also draws on two other recent lawsuits that accuse the chief of retaliating against senior officers who say he retaliated against them because they testified truthfully about deficiencies in the Blackshire investigation, which made the chief look bad.
But Starks goes further than those officers do by accusing the mayor of knowing that the chief was retaliating against the officers, assistant chiefs Hayward Finks and Alice Fulk, and allowing it.
Starks' suit also accuses the men of violating secrecy provisions of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act by allowing city employees to release his entire disciplinary record, including portions that should have been withheld.
The resulting disclosure gave a false and embarrassing portrayal of Starks' disciplinary record, the lawsuit states.
Metro on 05/28/2020