“Help us to own the diversity that we have in this community,” prayed the Rt. Rev. Chip Marble, assisting bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, at the opening benediction for a press conference held by terminated Greensboro police Officer AJ Blake.
The controversial saga of Blake, a Honduran-American of African descent who was acquitted last month by a Guilford County jury of assaulting two women at a drunken party held at the Greensboro Police Department last January, adds yet another racial discrimination claim against the department and has implicated an outspoken city councilman, whom the fired officer has accused of outright lying.
Blake said he had three conversations with District 4 Councilman Mike Barber in January and February seeking assistance with getting his pay reinstated while on suspension pending trial for the assault charges.
“At that initial meeting, Councilman Barber asked what my stand was on the lawsuit by 39 officers of color against the city,” Blake told reporters last week. “He said if I dropped my name off the lawsuit, he would help me get the charges dismissed. At no time did I raise the lawsuit with Councilman Barber.”
Barber has denied the allegation. “At no time did we get into his EEOC claim, anything related to that; his interest was the leave without pay,” Barber said from dais during a city council meeting in early June. “It would be illogical for me to talk about that, because, one, it wouldn’t matter if one of the 39 or 40 dismissed their claim. And secondly, these charges were brought by the state of North Carolina, and I have no relationship with the DA’s office except as an adversary because I, too, am a defense attorney.”
Blake’s allegation that the councilman tried to arrange a deal for him was initially made public in early June, a month after Barber asked the 39 plaintiffs in the discrimination complaint to which Blake is a party to dismiss their lawsuit.
“If these good officers were to step away and we discussed publicly the benefits of going through this process and how we’ve changed, I think the EEOC would see we’re a fine city, we treat our people right, and they might very well close their books as well,” Barber said at the time. Blake said that at a second meeting in early February, Barber called Guilford County District Attorney Douglas Henderson “from his office and placed him on speakerphone so that I could hear the conversation.
He asked the DA if there was any way to mediate the charges. The DA said no and that the case was going to trial.” Henderson did not return calls seeking verification of the conversation on Monday.
Blake’s ordeal has unfolded amidst an ongoing US Justice Department investigation of racial discrimination allegations within the police department and a pending lawsuit, in which another council member, Trudy Wade, is accused of leaking the names of Blake and other claimants to scuttle a settlement. Adding to the politicization of the dispute, the council fired City Manager Mitchell Johnson, who was considered sympathetic to the black officers’ claims.
“I think in this case we need to look at the liability portion of this deal: That we have a manager that basically made a decision to stand up and listen to some African-American police officers’ complaints about the police situation,” at-large City Councilman Robbie Perkins said during the closed-session portion of a March 3 city council meeting.
“What type of exposure do we have as a city, as a police department to a DOJ investigation? And is that exposure enhanced or increased by us removing the person that voluntarily opened that investigation up? And my concern is that we have quite a bit of exposure. That, that exposure is measured from a
credibility standpoint of our community in terms of how we’ll be
perceived statewide and nationally, as well as dollarwise.” From the
start, members of city council and the district attorney’s office have
taken a special interest in Blake’s case. And the police department has
taken a tough line against its former employee, suspending him without
pay — unfairly, according to Blake — and firing him a week before a
jury was to determine his culpability.
Barber
himself alluded to Blake’s charges in a council debate about the merits
of a proposal to create a citizen-led civil service board to consider
disciplinary matters for police officers.
“I said Friday that
our police department has 500 fantastic sworn officers, but they’ve
clearly got a handful of problem folks. Within 24 hours there was a
drunk police party at the police club and a warrant was issued for one
of our policemen.”
The district attorney’s office was also
monitoring the case. Testimony in Blake’s July 29 jury trial would
later reveal that the district attorney’s office was dissatisfied that
Blake been charged only with assaulting Lorraine Galloway, the
girlfriend of a white police officer, and not with assaulting his
girlfriend, Sandra Sanchez. Galloway would testify in court that she
confronted Blake after seeing him kick Sanchez.
Defense
attorney Kenneth Free Jr. asked police Detective James Schwochow during
the trial whether he was told to take out a second warrant against
Blake for the alleged assault against Sanchez.
“Yes, it is,”
Schwochow said. “Is it fair to say you did not want to charge him?”
Free asked. “It is,” Schwochow said. “I was advised by my supervisor,
Sgt. James Marshall, that there had been a discussion between my
supervisors and the district attorney’s office.”
Blake has
suggested that the false allegations against him were motivated by a
desire to cover up behavior ranging from sharing multiple sex partners
to racism. And the department’s handling of those allegations has
prompted him to file a second complaint with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission. (Blake was a claimant, along with 38 other
black officers, who subsequently filed suit earlier this year.)
“Councilman Barber asked why I thought people were making up lies
against me,” Blake said. “I told him I was not sure but that it might
be related to the prevalence of ‘swinging’ among some officers,
including the exchange of wives and sex partners. I told him that I
believed that the individuals lying against me were all sexually and
intimately connected and were trying to cover things up at my expense.”
Asked to elaborate, Blake said, “It’s a well known fact in the
police department that there is an entity of people involved in
swinging. It’s been going on for 20 years.”
Later, Blake
offered another variation of the cover-up theory. “Sgt. [Craig] Myrick,
who is the boyfriend of the lady that I pushed, is great friends with
another sergeant, Sgt. Hafekeneyer,” Blake said. “And I had been
transferred in 2006 from Hafekeneyer’s squad to Sgt. Myrick’s squad due
to the fact he made comments about Hispanics being ‘wetbacks,’ and
we’re ‘all illegal immigrants.’… I think they felt I would file a
complaint. And this was a preemptive strike to filing a complaint prior
to me filing one.” Blake said that in his final encounter with Barber,
before his case went to bench trial, he informed the councilman that he
was filing a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
alleging disparate treatment over the department’s refusal to pay him
during his suspension.
Blake had described the basis for the
discrimination claim in an earlier press conference. “Several years
ago, Officer Tate, a white officer, was charged with assault against
his wife,” Blake said. “He was tried in district court and found
guilty. He appealed the case to superior court. He was suspended. But
Officer Tate was suspended with pay. The district attorney dismissed
the charges against Tate. So he never went to superior court. I ask,
why was Officer Tate, who was charged with assault, suspended with pay
when I was suspended without pay?” Blake challenged Barber’s
credibility on another front at the recent press conference.
Barber
had said in early June that Blake apologized to him through his counsel
for the allegation that the councilman had tried to arrange a deal.
Last week, Blake said, “Let me say as clearly as I can that Councilman
Barber is lying. I have made no such apology. My lawyer, Ken Free, told
me that he has conveyed no such apology.”
Barber did not
returns calls for this story. Blake said a tape has surfaced containing
evidence of efforts within the department to frame him for the purpose
of getting him to withdraw from the discrimination lawsuit.
“It
has come to my attention that a tape, involving police Officer Scott
Sanders and another unnamed person, discussed their desire to get some
charges on me to get rid of me and get me off the department lawsuit,”
Blake told reporters.
Chief Tim Bellamy declined to
acknowledge whether he is aware of such a recording. “There are volumes
of tapes that we’ve got up here,” he said last week. “I’m not going to
discuss any of it because it’s part of an internal investigation, and
it’s being investigated by the Department of Justice.”
Blake
went before an administrative panel in mid-July, and the police
department informed him that he had been terminated about a week before
a racially mixed jury acquitted him of the two assault charges. Interim
City Manager Bob Morgan heard an appeal earlier this month, and is
required to render a decision by Aug. 27. “I have been without a steady
job for more than six months,” Blake said. “I have lost my home, and my
credit has been ruined. I am in the process of trying to get my job
back and to receive the back pay that I believe I am due.” The Rev.
Cardes Brown, Blake’s spiritual advisor, has seen his patience wear
thin. “You have a city councilman, Mike Barber, who lied. A DA who
lied: he’s the man who insisted that the man be charged. You’ve got a
police chief who has no clue what he’s doing.”
Brown said at the press conference: “I would that this whole community would say, ‘No mas, no more.’ It does not take this long to determine that this man deserves his back pay.”
Officer AJ Blake (third from right) held a press conference with Latin King leader Jorge Cornell (fourth from right), where he announced that he has filed an EEOC claim against the Greensboro Police Department. (photo by Lewis Brandon)
