Racism Reversed

Seven months later, Mengay was cruising down Chagrin when a 16-year-old, ignoring a stop sign, barreled into the side of Mengay's car, crushing it like a soda can. When Ramsey, Lockhart, and insurance agents investigated the crash, all determined that the teenager had been solely at fault.

Then the officer dented her bumper on a telephone pole, causing $808 in damage. Lockhart gave Mengay a written reprimand, but he wasn't really concerned. When you spend 40 hours a week driving a cruiser, minor accidents are "standard," the chief says. So he was wholly unprepared for the mayor's response.

In July of 2004, Broadie summoned Lockhart to her office. "I want you to fire Amy," she told him. She had determined that Mengay was a "safety liability."

Lockhart knew Mengay wasn't perfect, but "others were much worse." Lockhart considered it the mayor's most blatant act of racism yet, and he refused to take part. "I won't do it," the chief replied.

The mayor looked at him with surprise, then narrowed her eyes. "If you don't fire her, I'm going to fire you," she said.

A short time later, the mayor handed Mengay a pink slip. She left Lockhart alone for the time being, but their relationship noticeably cooled.

Mengay, however, refused to leave quietly. She hired a lawyer and demanded an appeal hearing with the village council. The mayor began to backpedal. If Mengay agreed to go on probation and signed a release agreeing not to sue, she could have her job back. But Mengay knew that "probation" only meant the mayor would be on her like a pit bull, and she'd soon be back in the same situation. She refused the deal.

At the hearing, both Lockhart and Mengay's partner, Tim Ellis, testified that her firing was unwarranted. It didn't sway the council. Daniel Nutaitis, the sole white member, was the only one who voted to save Mengay's job.

Now the mayor turned her sights on Ellis. A few hours after the hearing, Broadie called Ellis to her office. She fired him for showing "disrespect toward superior officers" and giving "testimony that we believe is untruthful." She also accused Ellis of irresponsibly tasering an unruly motorist — though superiors had already ruled the incident justified.

"The reason I got fired," Ellis says, "was, I didn't give the council the answers the mayor was looking for in the hearing." And he knew the effects of appealing to the council for justice.

He and Mengay both filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), an agency that rules in favor about 10 percent of the time. But the EEOC declared that both had been unfairly fired. When its investigators met with Woodmere officials to work out a deal, however, council members walked out.

Today, Ellis is working as a part-time officer in Sagamore Hills; Mengay is still looking for a job. Their case is now in the hands of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is suing the village for discrimination.

Not long after Mengay's hearing, Lockhart started feeling sick. Night sweats. Fever. Abdominal cramping that left him curled in the fetal position. He thought it was stress. Doctors told him he was suffering from a severe inflammation of the colon. They ordered bed rest for four months.

While Lockhart went on leave, Sergeant Anthony Jordan, cousin of Councilman James Jordan, was made acting chief. It appeared the mayor was hoping the change would be permanent. When Lockhart returned in the spring of 2005, he was shocked to find that his office key wouldn't work. The mayor had changed the locks.

The chief marched into Broadie's office, where she coolly informed him that after four years on the job, he was being put on probation. The mayor had prepared a letter spelling out his sins. They included paperwork that supposedly hadn't been filed and complaints that went without response.

Lockhart knew the charges were bogus — and he could prove it. Experience had taught him the importance of keeping detailed files. So the chief typed up a point-by-point memo, with the exact dates he'd completed the aforementioned tasks.

The mayor apparently didn't appreciate the back talk. The next week, she curtly informed Lockhart that she was taking away his patrol car privileges, saying that due to his recent illness, she was concerned he might pass out at the wheel. He became the only chief in the county driving to work in a Honda Accord.

But the chief kept plugging away. "I enjoyed what I did," he explains. "And I still believed the mayor might change." The only person he managed to convince was himself.