Borough Police challenge $525K racial discrimination suit

The Borough has requested a new trial after a Superior Court jury awarded $525,000 to a police officer who claimed that the police department retaliated against him for filing a racial discrimination complaint.

A jury determined on June 11 that the department did not discriminate against officer Gary Mitchell, but it decided that the police department had retaliated against Mitchell for filing the complaint. The Borough strongly disagrees with that judgement, said Mike Herbert, the Borough’s attorney.

The Borough filed a motion for a new trial a week after the jury’s verdict, and a trial court will review the motion on July 22.

Mitchell, who is African American, filed the civil rights complaint with the Princeton Human Services Department on March 22, 2006. He stated that “he believes that the Chief is setting him up to be either suspended or terminated,” according to the complaint.

Then-chief Anthony Federico passed away in 2009.

The complaint outlines five different issues raised by Mitchell, who had served the department for more than 18 years at the time. Among the concerns, Mitchell, who is over six feet tall, claimed that Federico had denied him the use of a patrol SUV that could accommodate his height, causing him to suffer back pain.

Mitchell also alleged that there was “elevated scrutiny” of his reports, that he was not paid for serving as “officer in charge” of his shift and that there existed a “hostile work environment.”

“Officer Mitchell believes that these incidents are racially motivated, as well as the chief having a personal dislike of the officer,” the complaint states. The other officers named in the complaint are current Chief David Dudeck, current Capt. Nicholas Sutter and current Lt. Sharon Papp.

The day after Mitchell filed the racial discrimination complaint, the police department filed an internal affairs complaint against Mitchell. The complaint listed charges including insubordination, lack of truthfulness, falsifying a police report and violating the “loyalty to the department” regulation.

The Borough disagrees with Mitchell’s version of the story.

“He had been told earlier that he was going to be brought up on charges,” Herbert said. “He went to the civil rights commission to ... protect himself and to set up a claim of retaliation. He was successful and we’re challenging that.”

Herbert declined to identify what incident spurred those charges, citing the potential for a new trial. According to court documents, Mitchell said he had previously met with Federico, Dudeck and Papp to discuss his “low productivity” in arrests and tickets.

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In June 2006, the police department agreed to drop the disciplinary charges if Mitchell left the department. For the next nine months, Mitchell took long-term sick leave. He retired in March 2007.

The same month Mitchell left the force, the civil rights subcommittee of the Human Services Department wrote in a letter to Mitchell that “your civil rights have possibly been violated by the Princeton Police Department.” The letter noted that this conclusion was in part based on the Human Services Department’s inability to meet with the police department and the Borough’s Public Safety committee to discuss the case.

The subcommittee then recommended that Mitchell file a complaint with the state Division on Civil Rights. Instead of filing the state-level complaint, Mitchell filed a civil suit in April 2008, according to Herbert.

Mitchell’s attorney, George Daggett, did not respond to a request for comment.

Last month, the jury awarded $450,000 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages to Mitchell.

These proceedings come just four months after another Borough police officer was awarded roughly $400,000 in a separate case involving alleged misconduct, events that, one councilman said, raises questions about the department’s ability to manage its affairs.

“What lessons have the Borough learned in the management of its police department so that the Borough taxpayer does not again face payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims to disgruntled police officers?” asked councilman Roger Martindell, a vocal proponent of more civilian oversight of the police department.

“The Borough government needs to show its taxpayers that appropriate management steps are being taken to avoid replication of these two disastrous lawsuits, and I am unaware, as a member of the Borough Council, what, if anything, the Borough is doing to prevent such repetition,” he added.

Kevin Wilkes '83, the Borough Council president, declined to comment on the Mitchell lawsuit.

In another case, three police officers were implicated in February 2008 for allegedly improperly viewing a dashboard camera recording of a traffic stop, in which a separate officer allowed a drunk driving suspect to urinate in bushes on private property.

Officer William Perez and Sgt. Kevin Creegan resigned from the force after an internal affairs investigation. Sgt. Kenneth Riley was indicted by a grand jury for his alleged role in the incident, which prosecutors claimed involved “an effort to adversely affect another officer’s standing in the department” by allegedly showing the video to the other officers.

A judge threw out the criminal case a year later, but the Borough pursued administrative charges. When a hearing officer found Riley guilty, Riley appealed to the Superior Court.

In January 2011, three years after the investigations began, a Superior Court judge ordered the Borough to reinstate Riley and pay him roughly $400,000 in back pay and legal fees.

The Borough’s challenges coincided with an overhaul of the Township police department. In October 2010, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office seized control of the Township police department and accused several members of the department, including the chief, Mark Emann, of engaging in criminal activity.

After a four-month investigation, Emann pleaded not guilty to charges that he stole a department-owned antique M-16 assault rifle and traded it for other guns for his personal use. Emann struck a deal with the prosecutor’s office that precluded prosecution but required him to pay restitution, complete community service and not to return to public service. The other two officers charged in the case, Lt. Michael Henderson and Cpl. Arthur Villaruz, resigned.

Martindell noted that while the Princetons have “some talented police officers,” he doesn’t “get the sense that either governing body is particularly adept at managing police affairs and I think that the governing bodies tend to have a more hands-off view of their police departments,” he said.

“But the hands-off culture [the] governing bodies [use] to manage our small town police departments has led to its own problems, and these problems include a lack of accountability of the police to the body politic, and that dynamic should change,” he added.