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| Ex-corrections officer sues his former department, bosses |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 04/26/2004 |
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A former Jefferson County (Ky.) corrections officer acquitted of killing an inmate has sued his former department and bosses. Timothy Barnes claims he was unjustly fired and a victim of discrimination. The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court, also includes the city as a defendant. Barnes calls the conduct of his former managers at the Corrections Department "outrageous and intolerable." He claims that he was fired, in part, because he is white. He claims he has lost earnings and career opportunities, and suffered emotional injuries. He has asked for a jury trial and punitive damages. Barnes was accused of killing inmate Adrian Reynolds, who struggled with officers inside and outside his cell on Jan. 6, 1998. Prosecutors alleged that Barnes killed Reynolds, who was black, by stomping on his head during the struggle. His first trial, on a murder charge, ended with a hung jury in 2000. He was found innocent in a 2002 retrial. Barnes was fired Oct. 18, 2002, the day the second trial ended, according to the lawsuit. One of the former corrections chiefs named in the suit, Ronald Bishop, said Barnes' firing had nothing to do with his being charged with murder, but rather his actions on the night Reynolds died. "He was fired because he violated jail policies with excessive use of force and improper restraining techniques," Bishop told The Courier-Journal of Louisville in an interview. Bishop, who is black, also said race was not a factor. |
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