CONCORD — A former bus driver has filed a discrimination lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming the County Connection transit system fired him after a rider shouted racist epithets and threatened to kill him, according to court documents.

On Tuesday, Keith Polee of Pittsburg sued the Central Contra Costa Transit Authority alleging it did not investigate an incident involving a racist passenger who threatened to kill him and instead faulted his conduct during that incident in its termination letter.

The transit authority and Polee’s attorney, Jeremy Friedman, both declined to comment for this article.

The legal filing claims the transit authority is aware of numerous incidents in which riders have subjected black bus drivers to racially hostile language yet has done nothing to protect employees or passengers from such abuse. In addition, Polee and his attorney claimed the authority disproportionately doles out discipline to its minority employees and retaliates against anyone who files grievances.

Polee, who is black, filed administrative complaints against the transit authority with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the Department of Fair Employment and Education, which in June authorized him to sue.

According to the complaint, a rider entered Polee’s bus in Walnut Creek in January or February of 2017 and sang loudly that “(racial expletive) should die.” Polee asked him to leave the bus; he had heard similar stories about the man from other bus drivers and that the man had been banned from other buses for the same reason, according to the complaint.

Then on Sept. 16, 2017, the same rider entered Polee’s bus in Martinez and was asked to not make those statements again. Halfway through the trip, the man began making loud racist statements, prompting Polee to pull the bus over and call his supervisor to say he did not feel safe and ask the supervisor to call police.

Polee saw the man turn toward a female passenger and heard him refer to her in vulgar, sexist terms, and as he walked the man off the bus the man shouted racist terms at another black passenger. Upon leaving, the man told Polee “I am going to blow your (expletive) head off and kill you, (expletive) ( racial expletive),” according to court documents.

After the incident, Polee told his supervisor he was greatly shaken by the incident and would not be able to work. He was involuntarily placed on personal sick leave and did not hear from the transit authority until he came to work two days later to speak with manager Bill Churchill about the incidents. They discussed other riders who shout racist statements at their bus drivers and Polee asked the transit authority to take action to prevent them, according to the complaint.

Churchill said the incident would be investigated and Polee was placed on administrative leave until Oct. 6, when he received a notice about the transit authority’s intent to fire him. The notice also blamed Polee for “his alleged conduct” in the Sept. 16 incident.

According to the transit authority’s Title VI Civil Rights report, there have been no complaints of discrimination by passengers or lawsuits filed against County Connection between March 2015 and March 2018. The agency’s staff determines whether a complaint qualifies as discrimination.

Polee filed his lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits discrimination in employment. In the past 10 years, the transit authority as paid more than $400,000 for four claims of harassment, discrimination or wrongful termination, according to an inter-office memo on its website.

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Robert Graetz, who backed Montgomery boycott, dies at 92 Similar situations have occurred on buses throughout Contra Costa County. In June 2017, 38-year-old Phillip Wade of Antioch fatally stabbed 57-year-old Anthony Johnson of Pittsburg after an argument that carried over from the Tri Delta Transit bus to a bus stop in Oakley.

Though at the time police described the altercation as motivated by sports and politics, not race, Wade, in a subsequent jailhouse interview with this newspaper, admitted using racist terms to refer to Johnson, who was black. Wade has been in jail since June 2017.