Luna Bail Bonds Richmond Reports:
Richmond police Chief Chris Magnus fielded allegations for more than four hours today in Contra Costa County Superior Court that he fostered racial discrimination in the workplace and promoted a police captain who was perceived to be racist as his second-in-command.
Today was the police chief’s second day of testimony in the nearly month-old race-bias trial against himself, former Deputy Chief Lori Ritter and the city brought in 2007 by seven senior Richmond police officers — all of whom are black.
The lawsuit alleges that both Magnus and Ritter made a series of racist comments and bypassed certain qualified black officers for promotions.
Following weeks of testimony portraying Magnus and Ritter as blatant racists who openly favored white police officers, the chief painted a different picture of relations within the department.
The chief today testified that on multiple occasions, it was the plaintiffs who made racially charged comments and exploited long-existing racial tensions within the department.
In a 2006 incident, Capt. Cleveland Brown approached Magnus in his office and said he did not want to work for Lori Ritter due to her race and gender, the chief told the court.
“He said, ‘An African-American captain shouldn’t have to work for a white female’,” Magnus recalled. “I remember him getting down on all fours and saying, ‘Don’t beat me, Lori'”.
The chief’s retelling of the incident differed starkly from the plaintiffs’ account, in which Magnus allegedly told Brown to imagine Ritter standing over him, cracking a whip and saying, “Dance, jigaboo, dance”.
The chief said that while he was “floored” by the incident, it was not unusual behavior for Brown, who sometimes cracked unsavory jokes.
Magnus said Brown even exploited the issue of race to undermine him during a fall 2006 meeting at a command staff retreat in Napa.
Race and relationships in the department were addressed during the meeting, leading to what both plaintiffs and Magnus agree was a heated, even hostile, exchange.
In the meeting, the chief said, he tackled the issue of racial divisions or cliques within the department and told officers “we needed to work together”.
He said some officers there, including some of the plaintiffs, resisted that idea.
One plaintiff, Lt. Arnold Threets, seemed to oppose “changing the rules of the game…in the ninth inning”, citing long-held racial divisions within the department, Magnus said.
“I felt like we had a very disjointed command staff…that we’re not modeling good behavior and really not on the page I wanted us to be,” he recalled.
That included a white lieutenant who complained that “every time there’s a promotion of a white person there has to be a promotion of a black person”, he recalled.
But Brown took it a step further, he said.
“I felt like Capt. Brown was trying to take a difficult discussion and amp up the volume, really get people upset and sort of encourage confrontation when I would have preferred us to have a dialogue,” he said.
“I really felt like he was challenging me as a chief…I felt, frankly, like I was being both challenged and sniped at.”
At that meeting, Ritter was also understandably upset and defensive after some commanding officers accused her of being racist, he said.
This morning, Magnus also described his response to previous comments characterizing Ritter as racist.
The chief said he vaguely remembered hearing input to that effect in 2006 from community member Corky Booze — who is now a Richmond city council member – and from Threets.
When asked how he investigated the comments before promoting Ritter to Deputy Chief, Magnus said he focused on her work performance, reviewed her personnel files — which included a recommendation from a black interim chief — and solicited input from police officers and community members from throughout Richmond about her performance.
“I never got that feedback from any of them about Lori…their feedback was that she was somebody they liked and knew,” he said, noting that community members and police officers within the department are “not shy about sharing their views”.
Jaffe asked why Magnus didn’t ask members of the police department whether they believed Ritter was a racist.
“I just think that’s unprofessional and inappropriate,” the chief said.
He noted that before the lawsuit was filed, he never received a formal complaint accusing Ritter of racism, and that he would have investigated that type of claim.
Magnus is expected to continue his testimony on Friday.
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