The Baltimore Police union leader suspended this week for calling Black Lives Matter activists “thugs” in a department-wide email faces possible dismissal. But almost nobody cares that this kind of retaliation is possibly unconstitutional.
“I haven’t thought about it,” said Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery, an obscure affirmative action hire until he rocketed to fame by claiming St. Louis cops violated his rights for arresting him while covering the Ferguson riots.
Of course, whether public employees are entitled to legal protection for offensive speech is very complex and depends on a multitude of particular factors. But the city could face an uphill battle if they try to fire Lt. Victor Gearhart, a veteran civil rights lawyer tells the Washington Gadfly.
“Yes, it’s complicated,” the source explained, “I suppose that’s why there’s now an internal investigation rather than a summary discharge. Stay tuned.”
The source, let’s call him Serpico, has sued cops may times. Serpico is averse to speaking on the record about cases he does not personally handle. Still, he is one of the few liberals even willing to express concerns about a possible First Amendment violation.
Georgetown law school professor David Cole, an outspoken civil libertarian at least until cops offend BLM, would not comment. The ACLU of Maryland said he deserved to be muzzled. And the Baltimore Sun suggested in an editorial that he should be fired.
But for what exactly?
Gerhardt didn’t use racial slurs or otherwise indulge rank bigotry. In the wake of demonstrations outside a local hotel during a Fraternal Order of Police conference, Gearhardt emailed from his official police account Sunday night, “By now you have seen that the THUGS from BLM and other similar groups have attempted to disrupt the state FOP Convention being held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel,” the email read. “Well today was check-in day with activities spread over the next 3 days so expect more bad behavior from the THUGS OF BALTIMORE.”
However on “the bright side maybe they will stop killing each other while they are protesting us.”
The union official also criticized a new Justice Department report that alleged systematic racial bias by the Baltimore police for “lack of scholarly objectivity and lack of statistical rigor” and being “heavy on anecdotes from questionable characters and light on provable facts.”
Thirteen protesters outside the hotel were arrested. But the Department sounds very determined to punish the lieutenant for his pointed remarks so they can appease critics. Commissioner Kevin Davis personally made the decision to suspend him.
Spokesman T.J. Smith said Davis is “outraged by the email.”
“We have to continue to establish trust and we can only do that through our actions and we have to call it out when actions aren’t representative of the men and women that wear this uniform.”
Hello? Speech is not action.
But this January, Gerhardt was relegated from patrol to building security after tweeting that members of a black activist group “dress like ISIS” and State’s Attorney Marilyn Moby should be deported. He is suing the Department for violating his First Amendment rights with the re-assignment.
Meanwhile, given how these days most journalists act like pansies, it was refreshing that Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton acted belligerent when asked this afternoon if anything was new on this story.
“Are you a reporter? Can’t you do your own reporting?”
The Washington Gadfly asks asks journos questions about their stories all the time and they readily answer, “what makes you so different?”
Fenton laughed, said he did not know of more developments and hung up.
As for Lowery, it is well to note that he is one of the few journalists in Washington who gives substantive inquiries for these items. Everybody else feigns ignorance, hangs up or scurries away.
But with one free speech lawsuit already filed and another quite likely maybe Lowery can finally give some thought to whether cops’ constitutional rights matter.