White supervisors at the state police barracks in Greensburg harassed and retaliated against an African American trooper who complained about racial animus within the state police, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Trooper Tavin Davis, who joined the force in 2017 and is now stationed in Dauphin County, described numerous incidents in which he said white troopers and supervisors treated minorities with hostility, from using racial slurs and complaining about football players kneeling during the national anthem to physically abusing or intimidating minority suspects.
The suit names a slew of officers at Greensburg Troop A, including Capt. Thomas Dubovi Sr., head of the troop; Lt. Richard Quinn, the patrol commander; Sgt. Jared Slater, Trooper Davis’ supervisor; and Col. Robert Evanchick, commissioner of the state police.
Trooper Davis said he became a trooper to “become part of the solution” in helping police treat the people they serve with “dignity.”
But he said he was subjected to racial hostility from his academy days to his duties on patrol.
“Although Mr. Davis became a trooper, he never enjoyed the ‘blue code’ that the majority of his colleagues take for granted,” the complaint says. “Rather, officers and the PA State Police as an entity, discriminated, harassed and retaliated against him.”
He said when he complained about such practices as racial profiling, supervisors cut his overtime hours, disciplined him for petty offenses and denied him training opportunities he needed for promotion. He ultimately transferred to another station across the state to “avoid the racial animus in his troop.”
Trooper Davis enlisted in September 2017 and within a few days said he witnessed racism from white troopers. As a cadet at the academy, he said Trooper Marty Grimm called NFL players who knelt for the national anthem “sons of bitches” and referred to the league as the “National Felons League.” Trooper Davis said the comments offended the Black cadets. Trooper Davis said he made a complaint to the staff.
The next day, Trooper Grimm told the class that “I don’t give a [expletive] if I hurt some snowflake’s feelings.”
A few months later, a kitchen staffer, after apparently complaining that Trooper Davis was late in arriving, charged at him with clenched fists and other staff had to restrain him, according to the complaint.
Trooper Davis was promoted to trooper in April 2018. He said he was given the passcode to enter the station but that a white trooper detained him when he entered and asked him what he was doing there, assuming he was not a trooper but a “black male who did not belong.”
Trooper Davis said that in May of that year, his colleagues hung a garden gnome outside his locker room door with duct tape around its neck, which he said was a symbolic noose.
Out on the job, he said a white partner told him that African Americans are divided into two groups, one of which he described by using a racial slur.
“This conversation irreparably scarred Mr. Davis,” he said in the suit. “Any hope at continuing his employment within this department was dashed as he heard these words.”
He said he saw many instances of profiling and disparate treatment, both directed at him and members of the public. He said he saw another trooper throw an African American teenage girl down some stairs and heard him brag about it, but he said troopers didn’t treat white girls the same way.
“Force was rarely, if ever, used in cases against white women,” the suit says.
After he had a dispute with another trooper and complained to Cpl. Jason Swope, another supervisor, he said Cpl. Swope “distorted the facts” to make the dispute seem as if both troopers were equally to blame when Trooper Davis said the other trooper was at fault.
Trooper Davis said that whenever he walked into a barracks room, other troopers would go silent because of his complaints. He said none of them trusted him.
He said that Lt. Quinn, who handled Equal Employment Opportunity complaints, asked to speak to him in June 2019 about his concerns and said their conversation would be private. Trooper Davis said he provided details about bias and profiling that fellow officers committed against him and minorities.
He said Lt. Quinn then asked him how he “felt about affirmative action,” which Trooper Davis took as a challenge to his qualifications.
He said the two discussed affirmative action and Lt. Quinn questioned the merits of the program and never followed up on his complaints.
In June 2019, Trooper Davis filed a formal EEO complaint in which he described discrimination and a hostile work environment at the barracks. “The department was rife with racial discrimination,” the complaint says.
Trooper Davis said the hostility continued. A white partner said Black members of Congress should go back to the countries they came from. Other troopers disparaged Black communities, specifically describing Baltimore as a “rat and rodent-infested mess,” according to the complaint.
Trooper Davis said that in July 2019, Lt. William Maitland, head of internal affairs for the western part of the state, told him he had received his EEO complaint. But Trooper Davis said he later learned that the EEO investigation “morphed” into an internal affairs investigation targeting him.
Other incidents of racial disparity continued, he said. When troopers seized Ku Klux Klan literature being distributed in the community, it was never submitted into evidence. In August 2019, he said he responded to a noisy house party in Greensburg and saw his partner unholster his gun as they got out of their car. Everyone at the party was Black. But when they responded to an unruly house party in October 2019 in Unity Township, where the crowd was white, no officers pulled guns.
Trooper Davis said he also was disciplined for having tinted windows on his personal car while white troopers with tinted windows were not disciplined.
Trooper Davis said he saw his overtime opportunities drop after his complaints but that white troopers “had preference and were receiving overtime.”
In March 2020, Trooper Davis transferred to Troop H-Lykens in Dauphin County.
“He was forced to transfer because of the culture at the Greensburg station, which exhibited racial discrimination, racial profiling, and a hostile work environment,” the lawsuit says.
He said the state police has still not properly investigated his EEO complaints.
“The PA State Police department, through its supervisors and policymakers, had a well-settled custom of race discrimination and harassment, which continues during Mr. Davis’s tenure with the department,” the suit says.
The complaint seeks an unspecified judgment against the defendants, along with compensatory and punitive damages.
In addition to Lt. Quinn, Capt. Dubovi, Sgt. Slater and Col. Evanchick, the other defendants are Lt. Maitland; Cpl. Swope; Lt. Col. Christopher Paris, the head of human resources; and William Brown, head of the Equality and Inclusion Office.
First Published: May 4, 2021, 6:46 p.m.