CHRIS BURKS

CHRIS BURKS: Motion objects to his sharing of suit information with a newspaper reporter.

New in the many-pronged legal disputes between current and former members of the Little Rock Police Department and Chief Keith Humphrey:

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A motion by lawyers for Humphrey asking that Chris Burks, an attorney for people suing the chief be held in contempt for providing information for a recent news article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

UPDATE: Burks disputes the filing.

In an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article Nov. 28 by Joseph Flaherty, Burks was said to be the source of text messages between the chief and then Assistant Chief Alice Fulks that included critical remarks by Humphrey about department captains.

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Fulk, who has since retired and become chief of the State Capitol police, sued Humphrey for employment discrimination. Other employees have sued him as well over his treatment of them. He in turn has sued in federal court alleging a conspiracy to get him fired.

Michael Moore and Khayyam Eddings, attorneys for Humphrey in a suit by three officers, including Assistant Chief Hayward Finks, asked the Circuit Court in a filing Monday that Burks be held in contempt for violating a protective order in the case. The order prohibits giving confidential information to unauthorized parties. The motion contends Burks had agreed the text messages would be confidential. During a deposition, Burks had asked a city personnel official, Stacey Witherell, if she was aware of the texts. She said she was not. Then he read from the purported texts between Humprey and Fulks. These texts were quoted in the news account.

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The motion said Burks should be ordered to show cause why he should not be held in contempt; for a halt to discovery in the case until the issue is resolved, and that the court instruct the parties on the protective order. He has not filed a response to the motion as yet.

UPDATE: (In his response, Burks said  that Humphrey had released the text messages to the Washington Post and he had planned to ask the judge for a waiver because of that release. He said he’d only confirmed the contents of the text to the Democrat-Gazette reporter. He said the latest filing is just an attempt by Humphrey to “muddy the water.”

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Editorial comments:

I didn’t grasp Burks’ theory in taking Humphrey’s criticism of officers to the newspaper. As chief, he’s entitled to hold his own views of the work of those in his command and to speak with a top deputy about those views, even if she happened to disagree. I remain unconvinced that there’s a legal case to be made on the part of officers who think Humphrey has, in essence, been unfriendly toward them. I also remain unconvinced that people joining together to criticize him is ground for a lawsuit.

It’s clear many officers in the department, led by the Fraternal Order of Police, want Humphrey gone (but not the Black Police Officers Association). Mayor Frank Scott Jr., who picked Humphrey, controls that decision and he has indicated he’s standing by his man, even as support for Humphrey evaporates on the City Board.

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There’s truth to Humphrey’s assertion that the departmental pushback, including lawsuits and public statements of no-confidence, stems in part from a new chief upsetting the old order of things — ranging from the end of no-knock drug raids to new limits on the use of force to nepotism in the ranks. He’s made some errors in judgment (beginning with the handling of the Charles Starks fatal shooting of Bradley Blackshire) and hasn’t been a great communicator.

Finally: If unity was the coalescing theme of Scott’s run for mayor, he and his chief have some work to do at the city’s highest-profile and arguably most important department. Regrettably, race is an element in this controversy. Humphrey and the mayor are Black. The FOP is majority white as are most (but not all) of his critics.

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