Dolton, Sauk Village settle bias lawsuits
By Frank Main Sun-Times Media May 10, 2012 10:08PM
Updated: June 12, 2012 8:27AM
Two Southland villages have agreed to make hefty payouts to settle discrimination lawsuits involving their police departments.
Dolton has agreed to pay 10 officers a total of $165,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming that they were passed over for promotion because the results of a 2007 exam were rigged.
And Sauk Village has agreed to pay three white police employees a total of $412,000 to resolve a lawsuit alleging that the mayor and the former chief of staff and former police chief discriminated against them because of race, according to village records.
Neither village admitted wrongdoing in the settlements.
The Dolton lawsuit alleged that the late Mayor William Shaw rigged the results of a 2007 sergeant exam in favor of two black officers — one of whom was Robert Fox, who became Dolton’s police chief in 2008.
The Sauk Village lawsuit accused Mayor Lewis Towers and former Police Chief Frank Martin, who are black, of subjecting three white police employees to racial harassment and retaliation.
One employee was fired, and the other two were demoted.
In November, Towers hired Fox to replace Martin as Sauk Village’s police chief.
