Sgt. Lindal Hairston smiled and joked at the conclusion of the Gary Police Civil Service Commission where the board voted to fire him.
“Next time I’ll come back as chief,” he told co-workers Thursday night.
Commissioners set an appeal hearing for 4 p.m. Oct. 1, prior to their monthly meeting.
A nightclub manager filed a complaint against Hairston after his December 2010 arrest, alleging Hairston arrested him illegally for carrying a handgun without a license despite the information from radio dispatchers that his license was valid. The manager, Russell Thomas, is also suing Hairston in federal court for civil rights violations.
Hairston had been reinstated just months before his encounter with Thomas, after a seven-year legal battle against the commission’s actions of 2003. Hairston lost his job then after two Lake Station residents testified that while he was off duty in November 2001 he made threats and held a gun to a man’s head in Lake Station.
Hairston fought the termination with a lawsuit and won an out-of-court settlement with then-Corporation Counsel Susan Severtson, who said the transcripts of the case were old and would not support the city’s case. Severtson agreed that Hairston should return with a corporal’s rank and be given the next available sergeant slot. Hairston was not required to undergo the promotional process for those ranks. Severtson said it was cheaper than giving him seven years of back pay.
Commission attorney Rinzer Williams last month asked the board to delay action while he researched some legal issues, particularly whether double jeopardy applied in the five-year-old case. “The board did not hear this matter,” Williams said Thursday night, and therefore could act. Without further discussion, the board voted to modify the hearing officer’s recommendation of a 14-day unpaid suspension to termination.
In his ruling, hearing officer Daryl Jones addressed Hairston’s challenge to the long delay in board action. Thomas filed a formal complaint Sept. 22, noting that after the original complaint in 2010, Hairston was off work on medical leave, then the city named “at least eight chiefs.” Jones concurred.
“The petitioner did take the proper steps to commence disciplinary proceedings against the respondent within the 120 days. . . he also continued to request updates and discovery for his case. . . due to multiple turnovers in the police department, his case was lost or out on hold,” Jones wrote.
