Racial discrimination complaint against former Sheriff Watson scheduled for trial in February 2025

Former Sheriff Clovis Watson, Jr.

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A discrimination and retaliation complaint against former Sheriff Clovis Watson, Jr. that was filed by Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputy Kevin Davis last February has now been scheduled for trial in February 2025.

The order from Judge Gloria Walker sets a pre-trial conference for January 21, 2025, and schedules a Jury Trial to begin on February 3, 2025. The trial is expected to take five days. The parties have been ordered to complete mediation by December 31, 2024 and have also been ordered to conduct good-faith settlement negotiations before the pre-trial conference.

Complaint alleges racial discrimination in promotion process

In the complaint, Davis described the promotion process at ASO: eligible employees may take a promotional exam and must achieve a minimum score to be placed on the eligibility list; the top candidates are given an opportunity to interview with either the Sheriff or Undersheriff; and the Sheriff or his designee makes the final decision based on relevant experience, background, performance history, discipline history, and other job-related factors. Davis claimed that after Watson took office in January 2021, he and other Caucasian employees were “continuously passed over for promotion and transfer because of their race” and at the time the complaint was filed, he had been third on the promotion list for lieutenant for 17 months. Davis stated that he filed an internal complaint about racially-based discrimination in promotions at ASO but said he received no response.

Davis filed charges of discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR) in February 2022 and received a Notice of Determination from FCHR in October and a Notice of Suit Rights from the EEOC in January 2023 that give him the right to sue. A third charge of discrimination was filed in March 2024 with the EEOC, and that charge is pending within the EEOC administrative process.

Davis provided several examples of minority candidates being “promoted, reassigned, or otherwise selected over a Caucasian candidate, with the deciding factor being race.” One example was a black male who was ranked fifth on the Sergeant’s promotional list and was selected over four non-minority candidates and given a position that is highly unusual for newly-promoted Sergeants, who are usually assigned to patrol. Another black male was named as “acting” lieutenant in spite of not being one of the top five candidates and not being eligible for promotion to lieutenant at the time. Another black male was promoted to lieutenant over eligible non-minority candidates although he was not in the top five of the lieutenant promotional list. A black female was hired in spite of a “known criminal history and numerous racially motivated social media posts.”

Davis stated in the complaint that Watson required photos to be submitted with the paperwork for promotions, transfers, and special assignments and that the photo “serves no other purpose than to confirm the race of the employee.”

Davis submitted a complaint to Human Resources in August 2022 when a black male who was eighth on the promotion list was promoted to lieutenant over him. In January 2023, two white males were promoted to lieutenant, and Davis claimed that this was an act of retaliation and “an effort to conceal discriminatory intent” because both had lower test scores and less supervisory experience than Davis.

    • Yes sir. Funny how Watson resigns and his entourage of flunkie command staff flew the coop too. They are just as much to blame as Watson since he helped him do it. Now you have Chad Scott and Latrell Simmons who were part of his command staff running for Sheriff against Sheriff Gainey. Simmons was part of the Darnell Era and Scott was caught up in the Alachua mess and left the sheriffs office under investigation when Darnell was Sheriff.

    • You mention Clovis getting early help from Dem lawyer Rod Smith. Is he leading a network too?

  • And? Nothing will come of it because he’s no longer in office. Other than that, the only thing he’ll have is a label besides former Sheriff.

  • Time to start digging into the same at GPD. The legacies of the Jones/Scott eras revolve around promoting incompetent minorities under the guise of “diversity.”

  • Can you spell DEI? What a f’ing joke Alachua County is! More than 25% of the county is under poverty level and yet they keep voting for the Dem slave traders! Don’t get me wrong, the Retardians are no better here!

    Show me an Independent Candidate!

    • You’re an idiot. It’s a 2 party system. You gotta pick the lesser of 2 evils. You should run! Save your BS…you are a dem acting like an independent.

      • “You gotta pick the lesser of 2 evils”

        What an ignorant statement… get off the partisan plantation

      • I have to beg to differ about your “Your and idiot” comment, but your statement, “You gotta pick the lesser of 2 evils” sure describes the sad state of American politics! Too bad this statement has been true at the national and local levels the past 20+ years!

        Democrat and Republican parties offer no solution to help hard working Americans (use your imagination to define hard working Americans, but it certainly isn’t financial slaves to either party, or the Party aligned slave masters; spell that dark money, big money, laundered money, take your pick).

        We need a viable option that isn’t bought and paid for as Trump and Biden are! All we can hope for is one will be in jail and the other will croak before November.

        Local elections mirror the national, just look at the local politicians and check how long some of the more influential among them have been living on your taxpaying dime, to include the former Sheriff!

        Lack of Money ran off any options in the Dem/Repub primary farces, not Trump and Biden’s plans for American citizens!

        These two gems only promise to voters is that the other “candidate” winning will mean the end of American Democracy! Newsflash: that ship sailed when the Dems vs Repubs made mudslinging and fear mongering their platforms, rather than what they will do for Honest, hard working Americans who actually pay taxes!

        The “two sides of the aisle” can’t afford to work with each other for the benefit of Americans; their financial slave masters won’t allow it!

        Anyone but a Trump or Biden (or a Clinton, or Harris) would be a win for America!

  • Yep, the affirmative action of yesteryear has morphed into ESG and DEI pseudo inclusion of incompetence.

  • When will the State Attorney and FDLE complete the criminal investigation regarding the ex Sheriff along with Chad and Joe?

    • Won’t happen. Remember when rodeny long broke the law by borrowing money on a property he had that was being foreclosed on? He said, “I didn’t know.” So? Ignorance is no excuse (unless…). Nothing at all happened. bill cervone was DA then.

  • We have a great alternative to the corruption this time.

    Sheriff Gainey is doing a wonderful job and deserves to be elected to serve another term.

  • It would be one thing if the intent of increasing black sheriff’s office members were to help improve and increase outreach into the more problematic areas of town, where distrust of law enforcement is rampant. I have always heard that the populations in some of our more high crime ridden parts of town don’t trust law enforcement at all – especially caucasian officers. So, if that was Watson’s intent and/or if we saw some improvement as a result of his plan, that might be somewhat excusable. It appears that there was no reasonable or rationale purpose, however, other than racial preference. It’s just good old corruption for corruption’s sake.

  • It is my understanding that former Sheriff Sadie Darnell wouldn’t promote Kevin Davis either

    • Incorrect. Davis was promoted to Sergeant by Darnell. However, Davis did openly support Sheriff candidate Zac Zedalis who ran against Darnell in 2015 and Darnell retaliated and attempted to run him off with corrupt internal affairs investigations. Darnell then applied the same method of operation while sabotaging the career of her political opponent, Zac Zedalis, who then sued her in federal court and she lost the case to the tune of about $450,000.00.

  • Question, What ever happened to the investigation that the State Attorney was conducting on Clovis? Was his resignation a “PLEA” deal for him to resign and not be prosecuted? Just one of those questions that are out there.

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