Insurers Pay $600K in West Virginia Racism Case

Insurance companies will pay $600,000 to a former officer who sued the Sophia (West Virginia) Police Department over claims he was harassed and fired because he is black, Mayor Danny Barr said.

That payout is more than the small West Virginia town’s entire $560,000 annual budget. While there’s no immediate cost to taxpayers, Barr said he worries the deal with former officer Damon McDowell may raise insurance rates for a community of just 1,334 people.

Barr said the town was informed of, but not involved in, the settlement that McDowell reached with the insurance companies in March.

Police Chief Tomi Peck has denied any wrongdoing, and the settlement does not require any such admission. She has previously said she fired McDowell after he left an Applebee’s in Beckley without paying his bill.

But McDowell, who was the only black officer on the force, claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy and fired last year after just six months on the job. McDowell contends it was the culmination of harassment schemes that included hiding paperwork so he’d miss court appearances, drawing penises on his papers and telling jokes with a racial epithet in his presence.

The federal lawsuit also claimed McDowell was denied training opportunities in favor of white officers.

McDowell’s attorney, Maria Hughes, declined comment, citing the order that the settlement remain confidential.

But Barr said acts of racism will not be tolerated and must be reported.

Police department policies were recently updated to make that clear, he said.

Among other things, McDowell charged that fellow officers told him he talked like a monkey, repeatedly played YouTube videos of a black man screaming “Rack ’em!” and played the soundtrack to “Sanford and Son,” a 1970s TV sitcom about a black junk dealer, when he was in the office.

Topics Carriers Virginia West Virginia