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On Feb. 6 Portland City Council voted to approve a settlement to reinstate and pay $100,020 in back pay to a police sergeant who was fired last year for making racist and inflammatory comments during roll call.

The settlement was passed with a 4 -1 vote which will allow Portland Police Bureau Sgt. Gregg Lewis to retire under the condition that he’ll never wear a city police uniform, or work for any city bureau in the future OregonLive reported. The city will also remove the firing from Lewis’ personnel record, replacing it with a suspension instead.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and three commissioners reluctantly accepted the settlement out of fear that an arbitrator would overturn Lewis firing due to his mostly spotless record as a 25-year veteran.

The first African-American to sit on the city council Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, was the lone dissenter, arguing the city “should fight” efforts to dismiss an officer’s justified termination.

“I’m not willing to give up,’’ Hardesty said.

Lewis was fired in February 2018 over comments he said on February 12, 2017, relating to the police shooting death of 17-year-old Quanice Hayes. About 16 officers and three other sergeants were present for roll call in the city’s Central Precinct when Lewis said something to the effect of “If you come across a Black person, just shoot them” according to his termination letter.

Lewis was instructing officers on how to place civil holds on people to transport them to a detoxification center when they’re inebriated to sober up. This occurred when another officer brought up a news article about Hayes’ shooting death by Portland Officer Andrew Hearst three days prior. This officer was “dismayed” by the comments posted in reaction to the piece, specifically to the article said, “PPB kills Black people, but only injures white people.”

“Officers began talking about this statement, and then I heard Sergeant Lewis state, ‘Well, let’s just go out and kill all the Black people,’” the termination letter states. “The officers appeared shocked and astonished. There was some uncomfortable laughter throughout the room, but most officers were quiet. This brought roll call to an end.”

Fellow officers remembered Lewis’ words slightly differently, saying he told officers to “go out and shoot Black people,” while another claimed he said, “Well, let’s just go out and kill all the Black people.” When one of the officers objected, Lewis allegedly “laughed, threw his hands in the air and said, ‘Fuck it. What do I care?’”

Internal Affairs investigator questioned Lewis about his comments, Lewis admitted to making them but said it was only an “off the cuff joke.”

“I thought it was kind of humorous,” he told investigators, according to bureau records. “The conversation about if it was a Black guy, we would just shoot them, is inappropriate and, as a supervisor, I should have been aware of that and thought a little more plainly about what it is I was saying and the message I was delivering and how it was received.”

“Having had time to look at this, I understand that somebody could take offense to this, but I was just trying to highlight this ridiculous stuff that was in the media” Lewis added.

Hayes Grandmother Quanice Hayes said she was frustrated with the settlement decision and told OregonLive she would’ve preferred to see the case go to arbitration. However, this settlement pays him off and “sends a message out that it’s all right to kill Black people,” she said.

Commissioner Nick Fish said he does support the settlement, “even though it offends me to the core to give money to this person,” but argued the arbitration would’ve cost taxpayers more money because Lewis’ termination likely would’ve been tossed out. He then placed blame on the police bureau’s own discipline guide, which sets the maximum punishment for inflammatory, derogatory language at an unpaid three-week suspension.

Another Commissioner Chloe Eudaly added, “there’s no good fight to fight when the game is rigged.”

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