Medina, White city manager must pay $2M to fired Chinese American police chief over racial bias
/Race played a role in the way that former Medina Police Chief Jeffrey Chen was treated when he was ousted from his position by City Manager Donna Hanson, a jury decided on Tuesday.
Jeffrey Chen, the fomer police chief of Medina, just south of Kirkland, who was ousted two years ago, has won his federal bias lawsuit against Medina City Manager Donna Hanson and the City of Medina.
The jury of four men and four women decided that race played a factor in the way that Chen was treated by Hanson, and that race played a factor in his dismissal in April 2011.
The jury awarded Chen $2 million, including $285,000 in back pay, $1.65 million in loss of income from his inability to find employment in law enforcement, and $100,000 in emotional damages. The jury also said that Hanson must pay $25,000 in punitive damages.
Chen's attorney Marianne Jones made the argument that Hanson was racist against Chen, and treated him with suspicion and differently from other employees, culminating in his firing in 2011.
Attorney Suzanne Michael, representing Hanson and the city of Medina, argued that Chen abused his power at the city and tried to undermine Hanson, who fired Chen after he used another employee's login information to get access to all the city emails.
Along with the back pay of $237,900 and back benefits of $47,580, loss of income from his inability to find employment at $1.65 million, and emotional and punitive damages, Chen had asked for reinstatement of his position as Police Chief at Medina.
In Medina, where Chen was hired in 2001 as captain and promoted to chief in 2004, he initially resigned Dec. 17, 2010. Less than two weeks after, he rescinded his resignation. However, rather than reinstate Chen, Hanson put him on administrative leave and launched an investigation of him.
That culminated in her firing him about four months later, saying that he violated the city's codes of conduct, saying that he lied during two city investigations, abusing his position in voiding some tickets, making improper purchases and improperly accessing the city’s email archives.
Chen refuted the allegations, and defended himself at the time, and in court over the past two weeks.
Many residents disagreed with the action, and dozens of residents spoke up for Chen at City Council meetings in his support.
The bias suit cited instances in which Chen and other witnesses say that city officials and employees made derogatory statements about blacks and Asians, and made disparaging statements to Chen regarding his Chinese-American background.
Chen states that Hanson was less communicative with him than she was with non-minority employees and said she had failed to discipline employees for making derogatory racial statements to Chen and others.
Jones also told jurors when Hanson would be out of town, she appointed someone else as acting city manager, instead of the police chief, which previous city managers had done.
Chen's attorney Marianne Jones was able to exclude from testimony Chen's employment with the Seattle Police Department. Chen left the Seattle Police Department in 2001 after Seattle began an investigation that began over travel expenses to a conference in Las Vegas, in which he billed the department $382. The matter was settled when Chen quit the Seattle PD before the investigation was completed.
