Posted on 06/11/2022 7:08:56 PM PDT by algore
A city in Washington will pay more than $1.5 million to settle a dispute with a former assistant police chief who was disciplined twice for posting a Nazi rank insignia on his office door and joking about the Holocaust.
Former Kent Assistant Police Chief Derek Kammerzell, was disciplined last July for hanging the insignia of Schutzstaffel Opergruppenfuhrer - one of the Third Reich's highest ranks - on his office door in September 2020.
Kammerzell, who had been with the department for nearly three decades, was initially given two weeks of unpaid leave after the incident.
Outraged residents and members of the Jewish community prompted Kent Mayor Dana Ralph to demand a resignation from Kammerzell.
The city's attempt to essentially discipline Kammerzell a second time, by placing him on paid leave and asking him to step down led to a dispute that appeared headed for litigation.
Ralph, in calling for Kammerzell's resignation in January, acknowledged that the decision to revisit the discipline issue would likely 'come at a high cost.' The city said Friday it would pay him $1,520,000 to resign.
Had the city simply fired him, officials said, he likely would have won back his job through arbitration due to federal and state labor laws.
Kammerzell told investigators the insignia was related to the The Man in The High Tower, a TV series that examines what the world might have been like if the Nazis had won the Second World War.
He said he adopted the nickname 'Obergruppenfuhrer' after colleagues began referring to him by the German name that translates into 'senior group leader.'
Kammerzell claimed that at the time he hung the image, he didn't know it was a Nazi rank and instead thought it represented his position as a high-ranking cop with German lineage.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I guess that kinda makes sense, if I assume they all voted for Jay Inslee
Uh huh. That "fuhrer" part didn't ring a bell? I'm guessing that outside of Gesundheit, that is one of the more commonly-known German words among people who don't speak German.
But, it has been strongly associated with Hitler.
Right, and most people wouldn’t know about it without its connection to Hitler.
So? This politically correct stuff has gotten way out of hand.
I don’t know about that.
I have known people who put german words like Fahrvergnügen on their cars.
I am feeling some angst cause maybe they were Nazis and I never knew it ?
I think a grown man in a position of public responsibility who makes Nazi references and jokes about the Holocaust at work is a little off. It has nothing to do with political correctness. It has a lot to do with common decency and having enough brains not to make a spectacle of himself by his light-hearted association of himself with one of the great criminals of history.
There is a difference between Fahrvergnügen and Fuehrer.
When Dr. Strangelove, at the end of the movie, rises from this wheelchair and says, “Mein Fuehrer! I can valk!” I think everyone gets the reference.
Probably thought no one besides another Nazi would recognize the insignia.
This isn’t actually Seattle. Kent is about half an hour south of Seattle.
The problem in Seattle isn’t Nazis; it’s the crazy woke, the socialists, the anarchists, and the fellow travelers.
"I hate Seattle Nazis."
Still a stupid and tasteless thing to do.
MM -Holocaust wiped out all our family in what is now LVIV/LVOV - Ukraine
Probably thought he was still in Ukraine.
Yeah, right; like there's a difference
Very stupid and tasteless.
Love those pastries! Does it come in cherry filling...or just apple?
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