Joel Fitzgerald, who was recently fired as the Regional Transportation District’s chief of police, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday alleging racial discrimination by the agency.
The 18-page complaint also alleges retaliation and breach of contract. Fitzgerald, who is Black, also revealed that he filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August.
“RTD fired Dr. Fitzgerald on September 20, 2024, based on false allegations, a racially biased investigation, and in retaliation for his EEO complaint,” the suit reads.
It’s the latest twist in the messy divorce between RTD and Fitzgerald, whom General Manager and CEO Debra Johnson hired in 2022 to lead an expansion of RTD’s then-tiny police department. He was fired after an independent investigation commissioned by RTD confirmed allegations of misconduct by Fitzgerald.
An RTD spokesperson declined to comment, saying the agency hadn’t yet been served with the lawsuit.
But weeks after CPR News requested it, RTD did finally provide Johnson’s termination letter to Fitzgerald that summarized the investigative report. The investigation corroborated reporting from CPR News that a transponder in his agency vehicle recorded him driving over 100 mph. It substantiated several other allegations as well.
“The conduct substantiated by the investigator is unequivocally unacceptable as the Chief of Police,” Johnson wrote.
The investigator said that Fitzgerald is a leader who sees himself, and possibly his department, “as above policy,” Johnson wrote.
Johnson warned Fitzgerald shortly after he was hired that the department would resist change, the suit alleges.
But, it continues, despite resistance among officers with “racial animus” who wanted to push out Fitzgerald, he succeeded in growing and modernizing the department quickly and improving “blight” around Union Station.
Those successes, the suit argues, caused some white officers, including a deputy chief and police union president Corey Averill to “redouble their racially motivated campaign to oust Dr. Fitzgerald.” Averill declined to comment on Tuesday evening.
The suit also alleges ATU-1001 President Lance Longenbohn, who runs the union representing drivers and other front-line workers, was aligned with “predominantly White legacy employees.”
In a phone interview with CPR News, Longenbohn said, “I’m completely unaware and shocked at any of these alleged racial accusations. I had no clue. I don’t deny that it might have been happening because I wasn’t in that realm,” he said, adding: “I know Steve [Martingano] and he doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy.”
White officers repeatedly harassed and discriminated against Fitzgerald and other Black members of the department, the suit alleges, citing specific examples including refusing orders, investigations into Fitzgerald’s hiring practices, and the display of Trump-related signage at work.
A citizen, who is not named in the suit, wrote Fitzgerald a note describing an overheard conversation between two white RTD police officers discussing how to get rid of Fitzgerald and other Black commanders he’d hired.
“The citizen complaint was direct evidence that Martingano and others in the Department were making racially motivated efforts to thwart Dr. Fitzgerald’s progress and otherwise demean, undermine, and oust other Black officers and persons who embraced diversity,” the suit reads.
The citizen complaint led to an investigation, which Fitzgerald alleges was sabotaged and led to a retaliatory complaint by white officers against him. That complaint led Johnson to place Fitzgerald on leave in July and commission the independent investigative report.
That investigative report appears to have doomed Fitzgerald’s tenure at RTD.
Initially, the suit alleges, Johnson told Fitzgerald that the allegations against him were “all bulls—” and advised him to “wait until this s— blows over.”
But the retaliation against him continued, Fitzgerald alleges in the suit. He said the president of the police officer’s union leaked personal information and allegations against him to the press, and that an RTD official leaked GPS data on his company vehicle to the press, endangering him.
CPR News, which first reported on agency records that showed Fitzgerald’s speeding, obtained GPS data recorded by a vehicle transponder and all other sensitive materials it has reported in recent months legally through multiple requests under the Colorado Open Records Act.
Fitzgerald’s suit does not deny that he sped in his agency vehicle. It says that no white officers have ever been terminated or investigated for the same infraction and that the investigator ignored problems with the GPS system that could make it inaccurate.
Other substantiated allegations in the investigative report, according to Johnson’s letter, include:
- Fitzgerald allowed an employee to use his company car for personal use.
- Fitzgerald improperly requested that a police department employee purchase a firearm using a company credit card. When the employee sought legal advice, Johnson wrote to Fitzgerald, “You express your anger that this inquiry was made and insisted that as Chief of Police you can do what you want.” Fitzgerald’s suit says RTD’s head of procurement approved the purchase.
- Fitzgerald and other department leaders did not wear body cameras. At least 10 officers raised concerns that this violated state law, the investigators said. The investigators dismissed Fitzgerald’s denial that he wasn’t aware of the concerns as lacking credibility. Fitzgerald’s suit cites a legal exemption from body cameras for administrative staff. But the investigator found that Fitzgerald and at least four other department leaders responded to calls while not wearing cameras.
Investigators did not substantiate other allegations, including claims that Fitzgerald's routine absence from the office negatively affected the agency and that he hired unqualified former colleagues.
Fitzgerald argues his firing amounts to a breach of his five-year contract. His suit says he’s lost income and can’t find a job, and demands a jury trial.
His lawyers at King Employment Law were out of the office and could not be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday.
