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Discrimination lawsuit claims environment following murder of Ahmaud Arbery drove a race-based hiring process for police chief

The lawsuit, filed by three law enforcement officials, claims county officials intent on hiring a Black man discriminated against them based on race and gender.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — (The video above is from a previous, unrelated report about the swearing in of Glynn County Police Chief Jacques Battiste)

Three Georgia law enforcement officers filed a federal discrimination lawsuit Monday, claiming the political environment following the murder of Ahmaud Arbery drove a race-based hiring process for the job of Glynn County police chief.

Arbery, a 24-year-old Black man, was murdered by three white men who chased him in their pickup trucks and shot him. 

Greg and Travis McMichael and their neighbor Roddie Bryan have been sentenced to life in prison after their murder conviction in state court, and are facing an additional life sentence following their hate crimes conviction in federal court.

According to the lawsuit, county officials “simply decided that, given the political environment on the ground, they would only hire a Black male for the position and would not meaningfully consider candidates who were not Black males.” 

The three plaintiffs claim they were discriminated against in the hiring process due to their race, gender or both.

“While Plaintiffs recognize that there were political realities on the ground in Brunswick after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and while plaintiffs surely favor the inclusion of people of color in important governmental roles, the county cannot simply decide that a position must be filled by a person of a particular race/color and gender and refuse to even consider qualified applicants of different races/colors and/or genders in hiring decisions," the lawsuit says. "Political expediency is not a justification for outright discrimination.”

The plaintiffs are identified as Mario Morales (a Latino non-Black male), Marissa Tindale (a Latina non-Black female), and Angela Smith (a Black female). 

They say they were denied an opportunity to interview for the position of Chief of Police, now held by Jacques Battiste, the county’s first full time Black police chief. 

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Battiste worked as a special agent with the FBI for 22 years, but was not law enforcement certified in Georgia. Although he was hired in July 2021, he could not be sworn in until December 2021 after undergoing the state certification process.

The three plaintiffs cite their “impeccable credentials” for the job. According to the lawsuit, Morales was a regional director for the Federal Protective Service (the uniformed police division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security); Tindale was a former captain with the Glynn County Police Department and a finalist for the job at an earlier point; and Smith was a captain and investigative commander with the Brunswick Police Department, where she worked for nearly two decades.

The lawsuit alleges the Arbery murder was the animating force behind the hiring process. It cites a comment by Glynn County Commissioner Allen Booker, that to “choose somebody other than something that the Black community would be comfortable with, I think it’s the wrong way to go.” 

Booker is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, along with the other county commissioners.

First Coast News has reached out to county officials and Chief Battiste for comment.

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