The following is the text of an e-mail transmitted to the City Manager, Mayor and City Council.
As indicated in the note below, Mr. Pete Peterson, the internal affairs investigator whom Chief Guerra selected to investigate my complaint and Dr. Buckheit's complaint was involved in federal civil rights lawsuit against his department. The lawsuit alleged that one of the officers under Mr. Peterson's supervision was guilty of racial profiling. Before the suit, Mr. Peterson had conducted his own investigation and had exonerated the officer.
The plaintiff prevailed in this case which took 4 years to litigate. For those interested the US District Court case number is 4:99-cv-02747-WDB
This raises troubling questions in regards to Chief Guerra's handling of citizen's complaints against his department. Did Chief Guerra choose Peterson in spite of Mr. Peterson's past or because of it?
This is a question that is appropriate for review by the individual whom Mr. Danielson will conduct in response to my citizen's complaint against Guerra and Wade.
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Dear Mr. Danielson
The purpose of this note is to apprise you of the results of my research into Mr. Pete Peterson's background.
As a result of my research I have learned that while Mr. Peterson was chief of the City of Clayton Police Department, the Clayton Police Department was a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that Mr. Peterson's department engaged in racial profiling. Also referred as stopping someone for "driving while black".
The plaintiff, Mr. Samuel Williams prevailed in the case. It should be noted that Mr. Peterson purportedly conducted an internal affairs investigation into the conduct of the officer accused of the 1983 federal civil rights violation and he exonerated the officer. Additionally, as indicated in the court record attached Mr. Peterson issued a declaration in support of the defendant.
It would be an understatement to say that I find the involvement of Mr. Peterson in my citizen's complaint to have been highly inappropriate. After all, one of my complaints was that Chief Brennan violated my civil rights by detaining me without probable cause and that Sergeant Eric Grim lied about this illegal detention in his police report.
I would like to call your attention to the fact that I was able to learn of Mr. Peterson's role in the case of Mr. Samuel Williams through no more than two or three hours of research. Hence it would be reasonable to conclude that Mr. Guerra and Mr. Wade were aware of Mr. Peterson's checkered past and retained him to conduct an investigation of Mr. Peterson anyway (or perhaps they saw Mr. Peterson's complicity in a prior civil rights violation to be an asset).
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
John P. Johns, CPA
