DENVER — The former police chief for the Regional Transportation District (RTD), who was fired in September, filed a federal lawsuit against the organization earlier this week, alleging racial discrimination and retaliation.
RTD announced on Sept. 20 that Chief Joel Fitzgerald was no longer employed by the department after he was quietly placed on leave on July 1.
Fitzgerald’s termination letter, obtained through an open records request, states that a neutral third-party investigator concluded that Fitzgerald violated multiple policies and did not adhere to RTD values. It states, “The investigator noted that you are a leader who sees yourself, and possibly the Police Department, as above policy.”
The letter claims that a random audit of a roughly 10-week span showed that Fitzgerald drove his RTD-assigned vehicles at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour on 23 occasions. It also states that he allowed an employee to use their RTD vehicle for personal use, failed to wear his body-worn camera in violation of state law and intervened in Internal Affairs investigations.
Fitzgerald, who is Black, alleges in his 18-page lawsuit that he and other Black command staff were subjected to discrimination and harassment by high-ranking white officers. He also alleges that some of these officers retaliated against him after he had opened an Internal Affairs investigation by anonymously filing a complaint against him.
After he was placed on leave, the suit alleges that Fitzgerald and RTD Chief Executive Officer Debra Johnson had conversations where she said that “this was all bull****” and to “wait until this s*** blows over.”
The suit claims the sustained findings in the termination letter “have no merit or represent markedly different treatment of similar allegations against white officers.”
