6-24
A 26-page racism lawsuit filed against the Methuen Police Department by Methuen Police Sgt. Charles DeJesus reads like a 1970’s undercover Ku Klux Klan exposé.
Accusations within the lawsuit seem so outrageous that it’s almost impossible to believe police officers and police superior officers would dare think – much less say and do – such blatantly racist and hateful things.
According to the suit, DeJesus alleges that his fellow officers and superiors joked about not providing Narcan to Latinos who overdosed on heroin, routinely used slurs like “n**ger, sp*c, animals, black lives don’t matter, called for “ethnic cleansing” and “burn Lawrence down from the inside out.”
Also contained within the pages of the lawsuit, it is revealed that many in the Methuen Police Department blamed former Chief Joe Solomon for the racist attitudes among the ranks of Methuen PD, but that once Solomon retired, the atmosphere of intimidation, threats, racist comments, and discriminatory actions actually got worse.
In fact, the lawsuit reveals that DeJesus reached out to a member of the Methuen City Council, and someone in the Perry administration pleading for help (during the Saba, McCarty, Simard city council 2 years ago), but that they had no interest in addressing the blatant racism in the PD.
Instead, Dejesus claims, the city councilor he approached ignored his pleas for help and tried to enlist him in manufacturing dirt on Joe Solomon so that he could get Chief Solomon fired.
When DeJesus refused to set up Solomon as their patsy, he never heard back from that councilor or anyone from the Perry administration ever again.
What’s worse, DeJesus says that whenever he tried to go through the process of addressing his concerns within the department, he was retaliated against, threatened, and even mocked during roll call, and by superior officers who told him that he was only making things worse for himself.
We are very troubled by the accusations contained within this lawsuit, but we are even more troubled that this suit could be settled out of court with DeJesus getting a huge payday from the taxpayers, complete with a non-disclosure agreement that would conceal the identities of exactly which councilor covered up racism, which officers used the “n” word, and which superior officers threatened him and retaliated against him.
Such a settlement would mean nobody pays a price for what Sgt. DeJesus allegedly had to endure while serving the taxpayers of Methuen on Mayor Neil Perry’s watch.
It would mean the Perry Administration and everyone responsible for what happened will get to continue on with no incentive to clean up their acts, meaning this behavior will continue unimpeded.
We urge Sgt. DeJesus to resist a large payout and demand his day in court so that the public can learn exactly what happened and who was responsible. ◊