By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald
BOSTON — The state Appeals Court has ordered the city to give back pay to six African-American patrolmen the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission ruled three years ago were wrongfully terminated between 2001 and 2006 based on a controversial hair test for drugs.
Boston police officers Richard Beckers, Ronnie Jones, Jacqueline McGowan, Shawn Harris, Walter Washington and George Downing “are entitled to reinstatement with back pay and benefits retroactive to each officer’s termination date,” appellate justices found.
The officers’ tests had suggested they’d been using cocaine. But appellate justices found “the six officers each presented a credible denial of drug use based on their testimony,” as well as “initial cocaine levels that were barely above the cutoff limit.”
The commission had found the hair test was not reliable enough in some cases to justify firing someone because it “is not necessarily conclusive of ingestion” as opposed to environmental exposure.
Boston police spokesman Lt. Michael McCarthy said yesterday the department’s legal team is reviewing the 16-page decision to determine what steps to take next.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice had argued high levels of melanin in the hair of African-Americans binds cocaine at a higher rate than whites.
“The City of Boston has been fighting for years to defend a scientifically unreliable and discriminatory drug-screening vehicle that resulted in the wrongful termination of a disproportionate number of African-American police officers,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director. “Diversity in police ranks is a key component of community representation and accountability. Our communities are safer and stronger when minority officers have an equal opportunity to serve and when police departments reflect the neighborhoods they serve.”
The officers have repeatedly won the long-running case. They had been reinstated with back pay and benefits retroactive to 2010, when the commission’s evidentiary hearings on the matter began. The officers then sought judicial review of the commission’s decision through the Superior Court and won back pay and benefits retroactive to the dates of their terminations. The department appealed, and on Friday, appellate justices again found for the officers.