By Joanna Putman
Police1
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The city of Anchorage has agreed to pay $300,000 to former police officer Jared Tuia, who sued the city for racial discrimination, Alaska Public Media reported.
Tuia, who is Samoan and spent more than 20 years with the Anchorage Police Department (APD), filed the lawsuit in 2019 after alleging that he was repeatedly passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced and less qualified candidates, according to the report.
In his lawsuit, Tuia cited a 2015 incident where, after being passed over for a promotion from lieutenant to captain, a superior suggested he could achieve more “somewhere other than the APD.”
In another case, Tuia alleged that in 2018, a former APD lieutenant questioned why Tuia was overlooked for a promotion and was told that then-police chief Justin Doll had preselected the candidate before applications were solicited, according to the report.
Tuia’s attorney argued that the promotion process violated the department’s equal employment opportunity policy.
Tuia received a “right to sue” letter from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August 2019 and filed his lawsuit in October of that year. He retired from the APD in July 2020 as a lieutenant.
The case was dismissed on September 16, 2024, and a report presented by the Anchorage Department of Law to the Assembly on Friday revealed that the $300,000 settlement was approved between July and September, according to the report. Both Tuia’s attorney and the city’s Department of Law declined to comment on the settlement.
