Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A black Kansas City firefighter who alleged he wasn’t promoted because of his race has been awarded more than $350,000 in compensatory damages.
The Kansas City Star reports that jurors ordered the payout Wednesday for fire truck driver Tarshish Jones. When he sued in 2015, he had been employed by the Kansas City Fire Department for 17 years and had been eligible for captain for 12 of those years. He took the captain’s test five times and scored high on objective testing. But the suit said he was “marked down in his verbal testing because he is African-American.”
The suit says white officers with less experience and lower written scores have been promoted. Jones still hasn’t.
City spokesman Chris Hernandez declined to comment because of the possibility of an appeal.