BY RANDALL CHASE, The Associated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) -- The trial in a discrimination lawsuit filed by two white troopers against the Delaware State Police began Monday in federal court.
Corporals William Bullen and Jeffrey Giles claim they were denied promotions to sergeant in 2001 after Gov. Ruth Ann Minner ordered a freeze on trooper promotions because state officials wanted to put more minorities on the police force.
“This case is about illegal racial politics,” attorney Thomas Neuberger told the court. “If my clients’ faces had not been white, they would be sergeants in the Delaware State Police today.”
The jury hearing the case consists of four white females, two white males, one black male and one black female.
Neuberger argued that the Minner administration was under pressure in 2001 from black lawmakers and the media about the police agency’s hiring and promotion practices, which critics said were unfair to minorities. The agency had become the target of discrimination claims dating back several years by black troopers and recruits.
Neuberger said pressure from critics prompted Minner to force former police superintendent Col. Gerald Pepper Jr. to retire, order a state review of the police force, then order the freeze on promotions in late 2001 because the troopers next in line were three whites, including Bullen and Giles.
“We believe the evidence will show that the Minner administration and the state police crossed the line,” said Neuberger, who presented documents suggesting that high-ranking state officials attempted to alter cutoff points for promotional tests in 2001 so that more black troopers would be eligible for promotion.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the Delaware State Police, Col. Aaron Chaffinch, who replaced Pepper as superintendent, and James Ford, secretary of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
Defense attorney Edward Ellis denied any wrongdoing by the police. One reason Bullen and Giles weren’t promoted in late 2001, he said, was because there weren’t enough openings at the time.
Ellis said the police agency tended to make several promotions at a time, rather than parceling them out piecemeal.
“The promotions come in waves,” he said. “Right here, there’s no wave.”
Ellis also said there was no evidence, only “rumors,” that a freeze on promotions had been imposed.
But Pepper, the first witness to testify, said that after he promoted two white troopers in September 2001 -- after Minner had announced Pepper’s impending retirement -- Ford called him and told him not to make any more promotions.
Under cross-examination from Ellis, Pepper said Ford had agreed to the promotions just days before the telephone call.
“I was asked to take the promotions back,” Pepper testified. “I believe Secretary Ford used the word ‘rescind.”’
After Pepper refused, Ford said he would get back to him. Pepper said Ford called back a short time later, saying he had spoken to “Lee Ann,” an apparent reference to Lee Ann Walling, senior policy adviser to Minner at the time.
“He called back and said everything was fine ... just don’t do it anymore,” Pepper testified.
Pepper said Ford never told him why state officials had a problem with the two promotions.
Retired Lt. Col. Thomas Marcin, formerly second-in-command to Chaffinch, testified that while there was no written directive ordering a freeze on promotions in late 2001, there was a “general understanding” among the state police executive staff, even though the subject never came up at staff meetings.
Marcin also said he couldn’t recall any precedent for the freeze on promotions, and that he would have expected such a decision to be communicated in writing.
Neuberger did enter into evidence a series of 1998 e-mails in which DSP personnel officials refer to an apparent target quota for black recruits set by Brian Bushweller, secretary of public safety for then-Gov. Thomas Carper.
“Secretary Bushweller has directed that 30 percent of the class be African Americans,” police personnel director John Dillman wrote to Pepper in September 1998.
The next day, Capt. Mark Seifert, the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the personnel section, urged Dillman in an e-mail to “refrain from sending any reference to the secretary’s decision to hire a class of 30 percent African Americans.”
“I also have specifically informed the recruiting staff that this information is confidential,” Seifert wrote.
The trial was scheduled to resume Tuesday.