Posted on 11/21/2021 11:09:05 AM PST by Impala64ssa
The Virginia police officer who abruptly lost his job after it was revealed he donated to Kyle Rittenhouse's defense fund wants his job back after a jury concluded that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense and declared him not guilty of murder.
What is the background? Norfolk Police Lt. William Kelly was fired in April after the Guardian revealed the names of police officers and other public officials who donated to Rittenhouse's legal defense fund.
Kelly reportedly donated $25, and used his department-issued email address while making the donation. Kelly also left a message on the crowdsourcing website that read, "God bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You've done nothing wrong. Every rank and file police officer supports you. Don't be discouraged by actions of the political class of law enforcement leadership."
In terminating Kelly, Norfolk city manager Chip Filer said, "His egregious comments erode the trust between the Norfolk Police Department and those they are sworn to serve."
Kelly, who was a 19-year-veteran of the police department, wants his job back. He spoke to the Daily Mail in an interview on Friday after the Rittenhouse verdict, explaining why he thought Rittenhouse was innocent.
"Everything I'm saying is just my personal opinion. I've been a homicide detective, a violent crimes investigator for years. I have a background. I watched the video of the shooting and I'd seen the video of the journalists of Mr. Rittenhouse before the shooting and the protesters before the shooting and I thought it painted a pretty clear picture that Mr. Rittenhouse had a very strong claim for self-defense," Kelly explained.
"I was very surprised when he was charged soon after the shooting with these murders and the shooting of the third victim," he added.
By donating to Rittenhouse's defense fund, Kelly said he was promoting the foundational American ideal that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
"I was interested in giving him the chance to defend himself in front of a jury. I know that lawyers are expensive, and it's hard sometimes to get the message out there. I wanted to make sure that he had the means necessary to make his claim in court," Kelly told the Daily Mail. "It mattered. The comments I made, my belief that he has a strong claim for self-defense was a personal opinion. I didn't want my city or police department to be associated with it, so I chose to donate anonymously."
Kelly also said his opinion about the Rittenhouse case had "no impact on my ability to do my job as a police officer," and should not have resulted in his termination.
"This is America. You can agree with your neighbors and other people in your community and you can disagree with them," Kelly said. "Just because someone has a different opinion than you, it doesn't mean you should destroy their lives, take their job away."
"If I had a different opinion and I donated to a fund for the victims and made comments about how Mr. Rittenhouse was a murderer, nobody would have cared or tried to get me fired," Kelly added.
When Kelly was fired, he was just 10 months away from his pension being vested. If he does not get his job back, he will never see the pension that he worked nearly 20 years to earn.
Will Kelly get his job back? Kelly has filed a grievance seeking to be reinstated.
In that grievance, Kelly accused Boone of hypocrisy for attending a Black Lives Matter protest in uniform last May after the murder of George Floyd.
The grievance states:
My dismissal reflects inconsistency, unfairness and discrimination by the City of Norfolk in regard to speech by members of the Norfolk Police Department. I engaged in speech which was private and anonymous but became public through no fault of my own, and which, when made public, upset a small number of vocal people for a very short time. The Chief of Police of the Norfolk Police Department, in contrast, has been permitted to parade through the streets of Norfolk, wearing his Norfolk Police Department uniform, holding a "Black Lives Matter" sign while marching with a crowd protesting against police and law enforcement... Kelly told the Daily Mail he hopes for a hearing over his grievance by the end of January, but said his case could be resolved before then, especially considering the outcome of the Rittenhouse trial.
I’d be curious to see the details of this. There may be more to that story than what you posted. One of the problems you potentially face when you use an e-mail address when answering this kind of solicitation is that the organization collecting the donations will often end up sending you endless solicitations via e-mail … and then even selling your address to other organizations for THEIR fundraising. Once that happens, your e-mail address and domain may as well be public information because there’s no telling who has access to it.
Sounds like the city manager needs to be fired.
If I were a police officer, I would have my own personal email address separate from the police department email address. I would never make any political contribution using a work email address, especially if I were a civil servant.
I sure as Hades wouldn’t want to work for an organization that already fired me for such a chicken-poop reason. I might sue for wrongful termination hoping for a cash settlement, but I’d look for a job with an organization that shares my values and appreciates my efforts.
Thank God this guy is fighting back. Most just will not.
I hope he sues, gets his job back with pay, and promptly quits for a better police job where the community supports their police.
“But if you’ve accumulated debt and created a standard of living on one salary, you can’t simply take a pay cut until you’ve cleared your debts and made the decision to scale down.”
The best advice for anyone is to live below your means and save for a rainy day. If you lose your job you then have time and options. You also have the potential to retire early.
I suspect this is an incremental step toward that end. You typically exhaust all grievance and appeal avenues before suing. I hope he gets his pension, if not his job.
“...used his department-issued email address while making the donation.”
Mistake.
Kelly should open his own Go Fund Me page.
“Can somebody please tell me why he would want his job back in Norfolk?”
Because he needs to put in ten more months to be eligible for his retirement pay. Otherwise, he gets nothing, after 19 years.
He should not have used his work email to donate, however a reprimand was in order, not a firing, when you consider that the chief was allowed to attend BLM rallies in his uniform.
He will most likely win his appeal to get re-instated.
Here’s the problem with forcing an employer to give you your job back. We work in a hierarchical society. Those above us in the hierarchy direct what we do, when we do it and what tools we have. If you get that job back, they can assign you to do things you don’t want to do and they can screw you for all future advancement.
If you want to sue for compensation, fine. But just getting your job back would be crazy.
“The only issue I see is him using his work email.”
If people are paying bills online at work it would probably be okay but... if that’s not the case he probably should have used his personal smartphone.
If people are paying bills online at work it would probably be okay but... if that’s not the case he probably should have used his personal smartphone.
If he gets his job back, especially after an eggy faced frumpas, I can almost guarantee that there will be no use of the companies computer system for conducting personal business ever again, and anybody who works there would be wise not to even try it.
Agreed. Always told my folks to not use their work emails for personal stuff. A company can look at it as stealing resources.
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