Former Metro Transit chief accused in lawsuit of unfairly demoting officers to further his career

Two former high-ranking Metro Transit police officers have accused the department’s one-time top cop of unfairly demoting them due to their race to advance his own career.

An attorney for Brooke Blakey and Sidney Jones filed suit Thursday in Ramsey County District Court against the Metropolitan Council, which oversees Metro Transit. The complaint singles out Eddie Frizell, the U.S. marshal for the Minnesota district, for allegedly discriminating against Blakey and Jones during his tenure as Metro Transit’s chief of police. Blakey, Jones and Frizell are Black.

Spokespeople for the Metropolitan Council and U.S. Marshals Service didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday afternoon. A Metro Transit spokesman declined to comment on pending litigation.

The situation began in August 2021, when Blakey and Jones’ children received backpacks containing laptops at an event at a northside YMCA sponsored by Seeds to Harvest, a community organization. At the time, Jones was a sergeant while Blakey was a captain who reported directly to Frizell.

Soon after, a handful of white officers allegedly used an internal, anonymous hotline the Metropolitan Council created in 2014 for employees to report policy violations. They contended Jones and Blakey flouted the council’s rules on gifts when their children took home the laptops.

That policy bars employees from “directly or indirectly” accepting presents related to their jobs.

An attorney for Blakey and Jones argued in the complaint the gift policy doesn’t apply to their children or community organizations including Seeds to Harvest. The lawsuit asserts that Blakey and Jones' children were nominated by the general public to receive their prizes, and the backpacks were given directly to the children.

The tips the officers submitted to the hotline allegedly led to a cascade of negative consequences for Blakey and Jones. The complaint states that Frizell, finding that the officers violated the gift policy, demoted Blakey from captain to officer and Jones from sergeant to officer.

He also suspended the officers for 160 hours without pay and mandated they complete 40 hours of remedial training before they could return to patrolling — a condition that Frizell allegedly didn’t require of white officers returning from leave, the complaint asserts.

Blakey and Jones contend that Frizell, then vying for the U.S. marshal job, disciplined them to improve his chances for the post amid a sentiment from some in the department that he favored Black officers. The officers also assert that the former chief imposed “extreme discipline” on them to “mollify the unfounded concerns” of white officers that they hadn’t earned their ranks.

Frizell was sworn in as Minnesota’s first Black U.S. marshal in May 2022 following former President Joe Biden’s nomination. He remains in the post, though President Donald Trump is expected to replace him with a candidate of his choosing. A few weeks before Frizell’s confirmation, Blakey became the director of St. Paul’s new Office of Neighborhood Safety.

The complaint accuses Frizell of violating the Minnesota Human Rights Act by unfairly applying the gift policy to Blakey and Jones “to appease the skepticism of some white employees who doubted the propriety of their promotions to leadership roles.”

Blakey and Jones are seeking a jury trial and damages exceeding $50,000. They’re also asking the Metropolitan Council to “stop its discriminatory practice,” scrub disciplinary actions from their records and reinstate them to their positions with back pay.

Attorneys for the Metropolitan Council haven’t responded to the complaint.