A former police officer at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith who lost his job last year has sued the school and the university's police chief, alleging employment discrimination on the basis of race and age.
Christopher Thompson claims in a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith that Police Chief Ray Ottman made "racially charged" comments. Ottman was hired as police chief in 2015, and the lawsuit states that Thompson began working as a UAFS police patrolman in 2012.
The lawsuit describes Thompson as black and Ottman as a white, and it states that Ottman acted with "excessive cursing and yelling" at Thompson while not acting that way toward "other similarly situated white and younger employees."
John Post, a university spokesman, said in an email Monday that the school has not had a chance to review the lawsuit.
"It is our practice not to comment on pending lawsuits," Post said.
The eight-page lawsuit claims that Ottman was "systematically changing" Thompson's schedule "to ensure" that he could not attend college courses or training classes while giving other employees preference in choosing their shifts, and that Ottman -- the lawsuit misspells his name as "Ottoman" -- "would often state that he was happy to accept Plaintiff's resignation whenever he was ready."
The lawsuit states that Thompson asked for help from a university official in August 2017, and that afterward "Chief Ottoman's harassing conduct was worse than before." Thompson was told in September 2017 that he was terminated from his job "because of a call he answered involving an intoxicated non-student," the lawsuit states. Post did not respond to a question from the Democrat-Gazette asking why Thompson was terminated from his job.
Metro on 11/01/2018