{"id":4006,"date":"2003-08-05T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2003-08-05T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=4006"},"modified":"2021-03-10T03:22:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T08:22:48","slug":"federal-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-polygraph-related-discrimination-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/05\/federal-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-polygraph-related-discrimination-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Refuses to Dismiss Polygraph-Related Discrimination Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n

Penny Brown Roberts reports<\/a> for the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Advocate<\/em> in an article titled, ‘Shocking’ discrimination suit kept alive.”<\/a> Excerpt: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A federal judge has refused to dismiss a former detective’s claims that he endured racial harassment and discrimination in the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office for years, and was wrongly fired for assisting a 2001 Louisiana State Police investigation of one of the sheriff’s friends.<\/p>

In a ruling released Monday, U.S. District Judge James Brady said Willie Turner’s allegations — one of which the judge described as “shocking” — “more than meet the standard for establishing a hostile work environment.”<\/p>

In doing so, Brady refused a request by Sheriff Willie Graves, who denies Turner’s allegations, to dismiss the lawsuit.<\/p>

“Direct evidence of discrimination is a rare thing indeed,” Brady wrote. “For summary judgment purposes, the court is convinced that direct evidence of discrimination rears its ugly head in this case.”<\/p>

Turner, a former professional football player, joined the Sheriff’s Office in 1987 as a road deputy and was promoted to detective a year later. He was fired in August 2001 and sued Graves in April 2002.<\/p>

In his lawsuit, Turner — who claims he began keeping a record of the alleged incidents in 1996 — alleges colleagues regularly referred to black people as “blue gums,” “little black Sambos” and other ethnic slurs, sometimes over the police radio.<\/p>

Turner also alleges officers routinely spit coffee and tobacco across his desk, incident reports and family photos; left food stamps in his chair; and — when a fruit tray was delivered to the office — told him “we left you some watermelon.”<\/p>

…<\/p>

Graves alleges Turner was fired after the sheriff discovered he had provided documents to St. Helena Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Rod Volgamore, who was assisting State Police in an investigation.<\/p>

According to evidence the Sheriff’s Office filed in federal court, the documents became part of an investigation by the State Police Gaming Division of Livingston Parish businessman Rudy Chandler.<\/p>

Chandler — alleged in court documents to be a close friend of Graves — is co-owner of a video gaming truck stop on Highway 16 in St. Helena Parish. No charges were ever filed in the case.<\/p>

Graves claims Turner provided criminal history records — including a rap sheet, photographs and offense reports — to Volgamore, who also works security for a competing video gaming establishment. Additional documents implied the Sheriff’s Office had attempted to cover up the investigation, Graves alleges in court documents.<\/p>

Turner allegedly failed a polygraph exam when questioned about the documents. Graves then instructed Turner’s supervisor, Kearney Foster, to fire him.<\/p>

“He was fired for violating my policy and procedure,” Graves said. “There was no whistle-blowing on any investigation. He was fired for releasing documents he did not have the authority to release.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penny Brown Roberts reports for the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Advocate in an article titled, ‘Shocking’ discrimination suit kept alive.” Excerpt: A federal judge has refused to dismiss a former detective’s claims that he endured racial harassment and discrimination in the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office for years, and was wrongly fired for assisting a 2001 Louisiana …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32,461,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-4006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-polygraph","7":"tag-labor","8":"tag-litigation","9":"tag-louisiana","10":"anons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4007,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006\/revisions\/4007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}