More trouble ahead potentially for Vancouver’s police department.
Earlier this fall, WW reported that the City of Vancouver agreed to pay a record-breaking settlement in the wrongful discrimination case of a former Vancouver police officer, Navin Sharma.
In that case, the city paid Sharma $1.65 million, the largest reported employment settlement for a single plaintiff in Northwest history. The City also rescinded his firing, allowing him to retire in good standing.
Now, one of Sharma’s lawyers in that case, Greg Ferguson, is representing a second fired Vancouver officer. And today, Ferguson filed a tort claim (PDF) notice on the City, informing city officials that he intends to bring a wrongful termination lawsuit on behalf of former officer Chris Kershaw.
Ferguson claims that Kershaw was fired earlier this year because he agreed to give a sworn statement in support of Sharma.
Kershaw, who received the department’s highest honor—the Medal of Valor—shortly before he was fired, is a Gulf War Veteran who joined VPD in 2003. He was ostensibly fired for mistakes in made in filling out a search warrant. As part of the tort claim, Ferguson included a page from an Internal Affairs investigation of Kershaw’s error.
According to the investigator, the judge who signed the search warrant said in a subsequent interview that he “didn’t see [Kershaw's mistake] as a major issue…he said he felt it was more of a training issue.”
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Tags: Chris Kershaw, Follow-up, Greg Ferguson, Navin Sharma, Vancouver
The VPD screws up so badly for so long. Can anyone be surprised that Vancouver is on its way of being one of the top 3 largest cities in the state of Washington and yet, its police department is not even an accredited law enforcement agency? As long as the VPD is micro-managed by the corrupt hands of the city manager and the city attorney, it will remain a broken and dysfunctional agency.
Reading the court records of the case of Officer Kershaw, it was very obvious to me that this great officer is another victim of the biased, dishonest and incompetent internal affairs investigating officers.
The following is quoted from the Officer Kershaw’s letter of termination written by Chief Cook in 03/08:
"…the actions of every member of this department have a bearing
on its reputation and stature within the community it serves. As the Chief of Police I am
obligated to insure a high level of integrity and professionalism within this department.
This is a duty I consider to be paramount to the Office of the Chief."
If the Chief truly believes in what he wrote he should have fired officers, such as Barker, Kistler, Delgado and Russell long time ago. Instead we keep seeing honest and competent front-line officers like Luce, Sharma and Kershaw being chopped off.
I urge all citizens of the city to study the Kershaw’s case to learn the truth for yourself and speak up for the justice and equality we all deserve.
Quan Tran
Resides in Brush Prairie
But Spends All of Working Time in Vancouver
Ted, this is the start of another lawsuit for VPD and the County and right out of the gate you start spinning your web of lies. Are you not sworn to tell the truth! Was Kershaw another decorated VPD officer and veteran retaliated against because he was one of many who spoke in defense of officer Sharma or could you not comment of the case because you have not read the claim.
But you stated that you DO believe the County had reasonable grounds to terminate him.
On your second breath you state that you DO NOT KNOW what the gentleman or Officer Kershaw did.
Fellow readers, Again this comes down to poor County management with the same incompetent lying and deceitful players. Mayor Pollard, City Manager McDonnell, VPD management and City Council, NOT another word, NOT another soap box stand or statement of how much you care about our County, all the good works you do and how innocent you are as you try and place the blame on the rank and file or the Guild.
God Bless you and I hope you can sleep at night.
According to the Columbia and VPD Public Relations Jeffrey Mize.
Ted Gathe, Vancouver city attorney, said he has not read the tort claim and could not comment on its assertions.