Mayor wants pension denied for racist remarks

PROVIDENCE — Mayor Jorge O. Elorza is calling on the city’s Retirement Board to deny the pension application of a former police sergeant fired in 2015 for making racist jokes about a fellow officer who was black.

The mayor said former Sgt. David W. Marchant’s racially offensive statements, made while responding to a report of a possibly dangerous package at the Brown University mailroom, not only made him unfit to be a police officer, they made him undeserving of a city pension.

M a r c h a n t ’ s remarks showed “a callous disregard for his fellow officers and for the standards we expect of our employees,” Elorza said. “As such, I call on the city Retirement Board to revoke his pension and send a strong message that his conduct constitutes ‘dishonorable service’ and will not be tolerated in Providence.”

Michael J. Colucci, who represented Marchant in an unsuccessful Superior Court appeal of the firing, said Elorza’s call for the pension denial was overkill.

“It does not seem to be consistent with the spirit of the ordinance,” Colucci said. “It’s a rather heavy-handed approach. We trust the board will see it that way.”

If approved, city officials said the monthly amount of Marchant’s pension could vary between an estimated $2,165 to $3,066 a month, depending on how it is paid out.

Marchant was fired in November 2015 over things he said while investigating a package that appeared to be leaking white powder. He was on the call with Patrolman Khari Bass, who is black. When a member of the department’s Special Response Unit arrived and questioned how Marchant had handled a package with the possibly dangerous powder on it, witnesses quoted March-ant as joking that it was okay, he’d had the black patrolman handle it so if anyone got ill, it would be just him. The department, a Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights board and a Superior Court judge agreed that the remarks were “hurtful, demeaning, degrading, and racist,” and sufficient grounds for dismissal.

Colucci said Marchant had meant the remarks to be humorous and regretted them. Colucci said Elorza’s suggestion could, for pension purposes, raise unwise remarks to the same level as corruption convictions.

The city’s pension ordinance mandates pensions be denied for employees who are convicted of crimes related to their service. It also allows the Retirement Board to deny a pension because of “any other misconduct or crime which the board, by a majority vote, determines is ‘dishonorable service.’ ”

When considering what defines misconduct, the ordinance requires the Retirement Board consider several factors, including the former employee’s length of service and employment history, the nature of the misconduct and “the quality of the moral turpitude or degree of guilt and culpability, including the employee’s motives and reasons, personal gain and the like.”

C o l u c c i s a i d w h i l e Marchant’s remarks were inappropriate, they weren’t bad enough to justify denying a pension to a 21-year veteran of the force with no disciplinary problems.

Emily Crowell, Elorza’s director of communications, said in a city with a majority non-white population, Marchant’s remarks weren’t only offensive to a fellow department member, they could negatively affect the department’s relationship with the people it is charged with serving.