Ex-jail guard instructor alleges job loss was retaliation

SEATTLE – The state Human Rights Commission is investigating the case of a former instructor at the state’s Corrections Officer Academy who says he lost his job for complaining about the teaching methods of two other instructors – even though those two were later fired.

King County Corrections Officer Abdul Mohamed, who took on the job of instructor because he thought it would help him make sergeant, was cut last fall after complaining that fellow teachers Robert Kerrigan and Richard Scott inappropriately used profanity and sexual innuendo in their classes.

Greg Baxter, human resources director for the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, looked into Mohamed’s allegations and reported that they were unfounded.

“Witnesses agree that he over-dramatizes incidents, and is hypercritical of people who disagree with him, criticize him or question his judgment,” Baxter wrote.

In November, Mohamed’s contract as an instructor at the Corrections Officer Academy, in Burien, was terminated, though it was scheduled to last until March 2009.

About the same time, King County corrections Sgt. Catey Hicks, a former instructor herself, began sitting in on classes as part of an assessment of the training program. Some of what Kerrigan and Scott allegedly taught appalled her:

•If an inmate acts up in the back of the patrol car, slam on the brakes so he hits the cage divider.

•If you’re suspended for violating policy, take your suspension during fishing season.

•And if you run out of options for housing a mentally ill person, drive him to a remote area and threaten to shoot him if he doesn’t leave town.

“The COA academy is in a state of dire condition that is in desperate need of an immediate and dramatic overhaul,” Hicks wrote in her review of the program.

The sergeant described widespread profanity and inappropriate sexual innuendo, none of it part of any role-playing. She recommended Kerrigan and Scott be fired, and in January, they were.

The state Human Rights Commission, which is authorized to investigate retaliation claims, is looking into Mohamed’s allegation that he lost his job for complaining about Scott and Kerrigan. If the commission finds reason to believe discrimination occurred, it can seek back pay, reinstatement or other remedies; it can also turn the case over to the state attorney general’s office.

Kerrigan, a corrections officer for Pierce County who was hired as an instructor in 2005, acknowledged that “I probably said some things I never should have said,” but that he was just trying to prepare recruits to work in a jail. He said anything he did in class was approved by the same supervisors who later fired him.

“They didn’t take any ownership on what they were allowing us to do,” Kerrigan said.

Scott was hired at the training center in 2006. He is retired from Snohomish County and denies the accusations.