DPD Crime Scene Detective Sues City, Claims Selection Committee Segregated Minorities

Back in August of ’08, Sam wrote about the case of the Dallas Police Department’s Roosevelt Holiday, who claimed at the time that he’d been pushed out of his job as a crime scene detective by higher-ups who didn’t like the color of his skin. Holiday, who’s black, initially filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which gave him the OK to pursue a lawsuit against the city and DPD; and colleagues to whom Sam spoke corroborated Holiday’s story, though, one said it wasn’t necessarily about race: “I got the sense that somebody didn’t like Roosevelt, and they obviously wanted to get rid of Roosevelt.”

Holiday got his old gig back shortly after the story ran, but that apparently wasn’t enough to appease him as this morning Unfair Park stumbled across court filings that show on December 1, 2009, Holiday filed a federal suit against the city, Mayor Tom Leppert, DPD Chief David Kunkle and others, alleging “White employees formed their own internal ‘selection committee’ to determine credentials for crime scene detectives.” Holiday is seeking compensation for lost wages and benefits, along with damages related to harassment, mental anguish and emotional pain.

The city’s response? Well, it pretty much denies everything other than admitting that the city of Dallas and DPD are located in Texas.

Court documents say a deposition is scheduled for today, and a settlement could be reached at a mediation scheduled for next month.

As always, the relevant legal docs are after the jump.

Update at 3 p.m. from Sam Merten: A representative from Holiday’s attorney’s office tells Unfair Park that today’s deposition was with Chief Kunkle, but it was postponed pending the result of the mediation, which is set for February 2.

RooseveltHolidayvCity
City Response to Roosevelt Holiday Suit