Who else was reprimanded for their choices?
A Florida police chief was fired after an inquiry discovered he participated in discriminatory promotion practices and said, “That wall is too white” when seeing photographs of the department’s command staff.
According to a news statement, Larry Scirotto was sacked by the city manager on Thursday. Scirotto took over the Fort Lauderdale Police Department in August. The investigation responded to multiple discrimination complaints alleging that Scirotto, 48, made improper race-based hiring and promotion choices.
Last year, Scirotto, a former assistant chief in Pittsburgh, was selected as Fort Lauderdale’s first openly gay chief of police. He is of mixed racial origin.
According to CNN, a 12-page investigation into the bias complaints concluded that Scirotto fostered a “divisive atmosphere” within the department and once pointed to a conference room wall covered in photographs of the department’s command staff and declared, “That wall is too white,” and “I’m going to change that.”
In another instance, the inquiry discovered that Scirotto asked, “Which one is blacker?” while contemplating a promotion – an occurrence that the former police chief denies occurred.
Scirotto, who led the police department for just six months, was cited in the paper as stating he aimed to “examine diversity at every opportunity.”
“Overall, there is a very divided culture inside the department as a result of the notion that the chief is deliberately utilizing race, gender, and sexual orientation as criteria for advancement,” the study states. “While diversification is an admirable and necessary aim, it must be implemented in a legally authorized way.”
Scotto told CNN on Saturday that between August and November, he promoted 15 persons, just six of them were ethnic or gender minorities, and that the story was “vague on the facts.”
Scirotto defended himself in an interview with Fox station 7News, arguing that the non-white applicants “deserved to be elevated.”
“Those minority groups are now being regarded as if they are less than worthy, which is not and has never been the case,” he told the television station.
“The minority candidates I promoted were great individuals who thrived at every level of the company,” he allegedly stated. “They earned promotion, and by the way, they were minorities. It was not due to their minority status.”
Scirotto informed the publication that he never made the “Which one is blacker” statement.
However, Fort Lauderdale City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said that the study proved the diversity campaign was unlawful.
“Our organization strives to be diverse. We make an effort to reflect the communities we serve. There are only a few legal ways to achieve that diversity,” he told 7News, “and in this case, the investigative report indicated that we did not quite follow the law in our efforts to achieve those diverse positions.”
The termination occurred after two Fort Lauderdale police officers claimed in October that they had been passed over for promotions due to their ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, according to the Sun-Sentinel. Lagerbloom allegedly halted advertising due to “concerns about previous police department promotions.”
Who needs a chief who base ranks through skin color and not with skills and experience? He should have said goodbyes to his seats because he isn’t coming around anymore.
