Fired Security Guard Alleges Bias in Suing Bellflower School District

A former high school security guard whose dismissal sparked a student protest last spring has filed suit against the Bellflower Unified School district alleging that he was fired because he is Latino.

Keith Castruita, 28, who worked for the district for two years until he was fired in March, charged in a suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court earlier this month that he was a victim of racial discrimination. He argued in the suit that he was fired in retaliation for complaining about the manner in which Tom Davies, assistant principal in charge of security, treated minority security staff and students. About half of the 2,000 Bellflower High School students are members of minority groups.

Davies declined comment. Eric Bathen, the attorney representing the district, said Castruita was simply an undependable employee who received numerous verbal and written reprimands before he was fired.

“There is absolutely no credible evidence at all that he was discriminated against,” he said.

Castruita charged Davies with exhibiting racist behavior by allegedly treating all minority students as gang members, calling a Middle Eastern student a “camel jockey,” referring to a carload of Latino students as a “Cinco de Mayo parade” and allowing two white members of his security staff to follow a black parent home to determine whether she and her children lived within the school district.

Castruita’s attorney, Melanie Lomax, said that in addition to reinstatement, back pay and damages, she also wants the district to launch an investigation into Davies’ alleged behavior.

“There has been a basic failure on their part to investigate these charges,” Lomax said. “Having any kind of school official engage in systematic ethnic and racial remarks is totally unacceptable.”

Shortly after Castruita was fired, a petition protesting his dismissal was circulated among the Bellflower High student body, and an estimated 300 students walked out of class. At a packed district school board meeting in March, several students praised Castruita’s work and pleaded with the board to reinstate him.

Davies also received support, with parents, students and faculty praising him for keeping the school gang-free.

The board took no action on Castruita’s dismissal. Castruita appealed to the district’s Personnel Commission, which upheld the decision to fire him after a 10-hour hearing in late May. The three members of the Personnel Commission, as well as the school board, the district’s personnel director and the principal of Bellflower High School, have also been named in the suit.

During the Personnel Commission’s administrative hearing, Bathen argued that Castruita was fired because he exhibited an “incredible lack of dependability.”

According to court documents, in the last year of Castruita’s employment he received four reprimands, one suspension and two unsatisfactory evaluations. Fellow security guards complained that Castruita could not be located on campus and that he left a football game early. Castruita was fired after he failed to appear at a basketball game he was to supervise.

“This is all total nonsense. . . . He’s simply alleged discrimination,” Bathen argued. “There is no evidence of discrimination. What you do have in evidence are the reprimands and evaluations. . . . If that’s not sufficient for dismissal, I don’t know what is.”

During the hearing, Davies denied referring to a carload of Latino students as a “Cinco de Mayo parade,” and security guards testified that he did not order them to follow the black parent. Davies admitted that he once referred to a student as a “camel jockey,” over the two-way radios that security staff members carry but said he did not know what nationality the student was and said it was “just a friendly conversation, teasing a student.”

Davies also said that he greeted black students with, “Hey, cuz,” a common gang greeting, because “that is the way they addressed each other in a friendly manner that seemed to be very acceptable.” Davies said he never received a complaint from a student about the manner in which he greeted him.

Bellflower High School Principal Donn Ashton testified that in addition to Castruita’s complaint, he had received complaints about Davies’ allegedly discriminatory treatment of minorities from the two Latinos and one black member of the security force. He said he found no substance to the complaints. The two Latinos and black security officer have resigned from the school in the last two years, and with Castruita’s dismissal, there is now an all-Anglo security force at the school.

“Where there is smoke there is fire, and there is too much smoke here,” Lomax said. “There are enough complaints that if (the district) really wanted to determine what is going on, (it has) more than enough resources to do so.”

Bathen said the district plans to fight the suit. A hearing is not expected until early this fall.