Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Fired Over Using Minority-First Hiring And Promotion Practices
The city of Fort Lauderdale fired its police chief, Larry Scirotto, Thursday (March 3) over allegations that he discriminated against white men in promotions and hiring.
"Following a thorough and extensive investigation of employee complaints at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, City Manager Chris Lagerbloom, has determined that it is in the City's best interest to separate employment with Larry Scirotto," the city said in a statement, CNN reports.
But Scirotto, who was hired in August 2021, doesn’t intend to go quietly. The former police chief said he was trying to promote diversity in the department and plans to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against the city.
City officials hired a law firm–just three months into Scirotto’s tenure–to investigate internal discrimination complaints. The firm’s report said nearly all 21 witnesses were displeased with his approach to promotions and what they believed was his “ intention to promote based on race, gender or sexual orientation," CNN reported. According to the report, Scirotto’s approach to hiring and promotions unfairly focused on minority candidates.
The former chief rejected the report’s findings, telling CNN that it was “vague on the facts” and mainly based on hearsay evidence.
In one instance, the report didn’t give context to a comment he made that sparked controversy, Scirotto said. He admitted to pointing at the pictures of the department’s command staff displayed on a wall and saying something to the effect of "that wall is too white," and "I'm gonna change that," as the report stated.
Scirotto said he made that remark in the context of the community’s “expectation of a diverse and inclusive organization. And how do I purport we have that when the entire bottom row are white men?" Scirotto told CBS Miami.
According to NBC Miami, Scirotto, 48, is mixed-race and was the first openly gay chief hired by Fort Lauderdale. The former assistant police chief in Pittsburgh was hired as the city dealt with protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of now-convicted white former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
The report alleged that Scirotto bypassed a white man for promotion who had 20 years of service with the department. It accused the former chief of narrowing possible candidates to two men of color and asking, “Which one is blacker.”
Scirotto denied to CNN that he made that remark about skin complexion. He insisted that his promotion decisions were based on selecting the best candidates. During his tenure, Scirotto said he promoted 15 people, only six of them were ethnic or gender minorities.
He told investigators that he considered “diversity at every opportunity” in his decision-making. The former police chief defended that approach to CNN.
"If promoting diversity is the hill I'm going to die on, I will sleep well tonight," he said. "I won't allow them to tarnish my reputation. I won't allow them to tarnish the work that I've done in the 24 years I've been in this profession."
