National: Ex-Atlanta Police Sergeant Sues Chief

hbarber — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:56:29 +0000

An African-American ex-Atlanta Police sergeant is suing the city, alleging that Chief Richard Pennington discriminated against her when he let her go two years ago. When the Atlanta Police Department dismissed Karen Wells in April 2007, officials attributed it to a “lie” she had told, she says in her suit. But Wells, who had been with the Atlanta Police Department for 25 years — the last 14 as a sergeant — at the time, says she never lied about anything, only that she misunderstood the question and made a mistake in her response. In her lawsuit, Wells says that her firing was triggered by an internal investigation about whether another city department had paid police officers properly for working additional hours to guard a water main break. In May 2005, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, a water main broke on Peachtree Street in Buckhead. Wells was granted the extra work hours she had requested to guard the water main break. When asked whether she kept copies of paperwork for “extra jobs,” she said no. Less than two weeks later, the lawsuit contends, Wells told police officials she made a mistake because she was distracted by her mother’s surgery and was suffering from anxiety and depression. The department notified her on April 25, 2007, that she was being terminated, the lawsuit said. Wells, who is Black and 40, argues that she was punished more harshly because of her age, gender and race.

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National: Ex-Atlanta Police Sergeant Sues Chief