Nashville Fire Department trucks (YouTube screengrab/WKRN).
A fight over free speech and public trust is unfurling in Tennessee after a city council resoundingly rejected a settlement offer of $105,000 for a white fire captain who sued on First Amendment grounds after he was temporarily demoted for posting messages online calling protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in 2020 “thugs” and “animals.”
Tracy Turner, of Old Hickory, Tennessee, is fire captain at the Nashville Fire Department with 25 years experience and he was demoted to the rank of firefighter for just six months four years ago when his posts were brought to the attention of his supervisors. The messages were disparaging and as members of the Nashville Metropolitan Council would later argue as they fought off his $2.1 million lawsuit, they were improper and racially charged given that they were being made by a public servant in a predominantly Black community.
Among other posts, including references to protesters as “animals,” Turner wrote on his personal Facebook account that year: “These Protesters are the stupidest people on the planet, other than the arsonist and looters that hang out with them,” and “It’s not that the Anti-Fa and BLM thugs are so strong that they are able to take over part of a city…It’s that the Democrat Mayors are so weak as to let it happen. Shameful.”
According to local ABC affiliate WKRN, another post said: “If all white people can be guilty for slavery because of a few plantation owners … then black people get to share the same guilt. There were Black plantation owners as well. So if all whites are guilty so are blacks.”
The screeds left a bad taste in the mouth of many members of the community he served, as Fox affiliate WZTV first reported in July 2020. Outrage reached local politicians too including one state representative who said he didn’t think Turner should be a first responder in a predominantly Black community since it was hard to believe — based on his posts — that Turner would give “100% effort every time” he was called to serve that community.
Turner ended up suing the Nashville Metro Council in January 2021 for $2.1 million after his demotion was ordered by fire department chief William Swann. The chief demoted Turner for violating department policies involving social media use. But this, according to the embroiled fire captain’s lawsuit, was merely retaliation to his protected speech.
2020 was one of the most eventful and contentious years in American history, Turner argued in his original complaint against the city: the first impeachment of Donald Trump concluded, and the former president’s was acquitted in the Senate; later that year, the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and then the killing of George Floyd culminated in a perfect storm, he argued.
So it was “within this cultural milieu” that he exercised his right to speak his “personal views as a private citizen” about violent protesters, according to the 15-page complaint [emphasis original].
Some of that expression included sharing articles on Facebook including one titled “BLM Roots are Tied to Racists.” This article and other messages where Turner said he was describing his “personal political thoughts regarding the racial division in our country” were laid before him when he was hauled into meet with his superiors prior to his demotion.
He said he was told to take the post down before he endured attacks on his “character and fitness as a fireman” from members of the department including his superiors.
Pitched legal negotiations and mediation ensued for more a year.
Though the council claimed Turner had damaged the department’s reputation as well as disrupted day to day operations, when it came down to it, Tennessee Middle District Judge Eli Richardson, a Trump appointee, disagreed. He ruled against the city’s motion for summary judgment in September 2023.
While controversial, the judge found Turner’s commentary did not damage the department’s reputation nor did the judge find any evidence confirming his remarks had disrupted regular fire department services as the council had claimed.
Richardson pointed out, court records show, that a president of a local firefighter union had also testified on the record that there was “no impairment of discipline or morale” within the Nashville Fire Department in the wake of Turner’s posts.
Turner’s attorney Larry Crain however, told Law&Crime in an email that the it was a compromise and settlement that “would have spared both sides the time, expense and resources of going to a jury trial and possible appeal from the jury’s verdict.”
“It is not uncommon in litigating free speech cases that plaintiffs accept significantly less than the amount demanded in their lawsuit. Since the settlement was rejected by the Metro Council, Capt. Turner is now restored to his original damages demand in the lawsuit,” Crain said, adding that the jury will also be barred from hearing evidence regarding the mediation or any settlement discussions.
The council voted 31-0 with just three members abstaining to reject Turner’s settlement. During a public meeting ahead of the vote, several city council members expressed the reasons they felt the need to take the risk on the resolution.
“I took an oath to uphold our Constitution.. as a civil rights attorney, I have spoken about First Amendment concerns before,” said Nashville council member Jeff Preptit. “I have no such concerns here; the Sixth Circuit has held that in these instances, the relevant inquiry is whether a statement impairs harmony among coworkers, has detrimental impact on the close working relationship to which loyalty and confidence are necessary and impedes performance of the speakers’ duties or interferes with regular operation of enterprise or undermines mission of employment.”
Preptit continued:
Tracy Turner’s statements have had this exact effect. How can his fellow Black firefighters trust that he will have their backs when charging into a blazing building when he refers to Black citizens and those who call for reform ‘animals’ and ‘thugs’? How can our Black citizens trust he will faithfully fulfill his duties to provide services and care when he views them as ‘animals’? How can our community trust our institutions when those who occupy them use racially motivated vitriol?
The facts and law demand we reject the settlement.. For too long fire departments played a role in enforcement of Jim crow laws..leading people of color to die in burning buildings or turning high pressure water hoses against those protesting. Actions perpetuating that legacy has no place in our fire department.
Dietz, however, argued in favor of the settlement, acknowledging that with Richardson’s ruling, there would be very little that would likely change before going to trial or taking the case to the Court of Appeals.
Calling it a “crapshoot,” Dietz said the odds that the Sixth Circuit would reverse Richardson seemed even less likely to him. But it was not for the Metropolitan Government for Nashville and Davidson County to stand in the way.
“If we lose, we’ll end up paying three, or maybe four times as much money if we lose,” he said.
But if they wanted to keep fighting and keep “standing on principle,” as council member David Benton said at the meeting ahead of the vote, that’s what they would do.
Dietz acknowledged that even Richardson had expressed his opinion that free speech cases are “very subjective” and that if they had a different judge, perhaps the council would have achieved a different result.
