It may seem like the worst-timed lawsuit ever: the U.S. is still reeling from the death of Michael Brown and the grand jury decision not to indict the cop responsible, and Cleveland police are themselves under investigation for the shooting death of 12-year old Tamir Rice.
That didn’t stop one Hispanic and eight white officers from claiming discrimination because they were assigned “gym duty.”
The incident in question occurred in November, 2012. Russell and Williams led police on a high-speed chase after which police opened fire into the car. The two occupants were both killed after each was hit at least 20 times. No weapons were found in the car and the officers were found to have lied in their report about the incident. The families filed wrongful death suits which the city settled for $3 million.
All of the officers involved were placed on three days of administrative leave and were then given a 45-day period of restricted duty, a standard practice. However, the nine officers now suing the department say they were kept on restricted duty, meaning they were given menial tasks and were prohibited from earning overtime pay.
The lawsuit notes that the plaintiffs are all “non-African.” The discrimination claim stems from what they say were harsher penalties for the nine “non-African” officers than the others involved.
Specifically, the “Plaintiffs’ assignment to ‘gym duty’ was substantially longer than that which had been meted out to similarly situated African-American officers,” the lawsuit says.
Clearly, gym duty is undesirable. But it likely lacks in comparison to the fate of, say, Tamir Rice.
