Fired Fort Lauderdale Cop Fighting For His Job Back At Hearing
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FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – It has been nearly a year since the City of Fort Lauderdale fired three police officers accused of sending text messages with racial slurs. Now one of those officers is trying to get his job back.
There was an arbitration hearing at city hall for that officer, James Wells.
"The public and the city has the right to have a police force which has integrity, honor, unbiased to protect the citizens of Fort Lauderdale," said City of Fort Lauderdale Attorney Eugene Pettis at the hearing.
Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley attended part of Wednesday's hearing.
According to Adderley, former officer Alex Alvarez created a video that was "racially biased."
Adderley said there was a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hood seen in the video which also takes shots at President Barack Obama with large gold teeth.
Fort Lauderdale officers Chris Sousa, Jason Holding and Wells were sent the video and the group reportedly exchanged racist text messages among themselves.
Wells, Sousa and Holding, were fired while Alvarez resigned.
The investigation started after Alvarez's ex-fiance came forward in October 2014, sending information to Adderley.
"They're disturbing, that's it. Referencing pictures, it's kinda hard you had to read them a bunch of times to kinda get through," said Sgt. Daniel Cortes of internal affairs. "Some of this was talked in, lack of a better term, code."
But Wells' attorney said he has a right to privacy and that the information was illegally obtained.
"Everybody has a right to privacy," explained Well's attorney, Bruce Little. "In this situation, there were text messages between individual and Florida law governs the capture of those text messages."
The hearing will go on until Friday.
Wells still has present his testimony. It is unclear if he will testify.