COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — The former deputy police chief and city manager in College Park are accusing the city of sexual discrimination in a new lawsuit.
The federal lawsuit, according to a release, alleges the former deputy chief, Sharis McCrary, was told she would only ever get the police chief job "was if she would agree to serve as a figurehead while a white male officer would serve as the actual chief without the title."
11Alive has reached out to College Park for a response but has not received a response.
The former city manager, Darnetta Tyus, meanwhile alleges she was fired after hiring a Black woman as a consultant in the search for a police chief. That consultant was "dismissed from the project as soon as Tyus was fired and another consultant, a white male, was hired in her place," the release from HKM Employment Attorneys states.
Both plaintiffs, McCrary and Tyus, are Black women.
“College Park preaches equality and lifting up its numerous female employees but they don’t practice what they preach,” attorney Artur Davis said in a statement. “This lawsuit is the first step to hold the City Council accountable for damaging the careers and self-esteem of women who simply want to serve the city.”
The lawsuit asserts that in 2019 and 2020 "speculation emerged... that McCrary was on a path to become College Park's first Black female police chief," but that she was discouraged by Mayor Bianca Motley Broom - who is herself a Black woman.
When McCrary made her ambition to be chief clear, she received a response of, "that is not going to happen," according to the suit.
"McCrary was taken aback by the remark, which she perceived was a commentary on the all male council's resistance to appointing a female, or Black female, chief," the suit states.
It adds that when the chief resigned in 2021, instead of being elevated to interim chief (as the deputy chief), McCrary was initially passed over for a white man, who was installed as interim chief. She was eventually appointed interim chief in September 2021.
Tyus, meanwhile, took over the search process for a permanent chief as the new city manager in February 2022. The suit states she "encountered obstacles from the all male council" from the start. McCrary alleges at that same time she "began to experience various forms of interference in her interim chief's role."
In one accusation, she says a city councilman told her "You need to step it up if you want to keep this job" in front of another officer, her subordinate.
The suit alleges a culture of misogyny from the city council, of which even Mayor Broom was a victim.
Once Tyus told the mayor in May 2022 she was going to review the consultant's candidates for chief, she was shortly informed that the council had voted to terminate her contract after only four months on the job.
A Black woman, Connie Rogers, was named police chief in November 2022.
