Suspended Hawthorne High School Security Chief Quits

Hawthorne High School security chief Jerome Brown--who was recently suspended for six months on administrative charges that he disobeyed his superiors, threatened a district official and interfered with the arrest of a student--resigned from his post last week.

Brown said he resigned last Thursday because “it was obvious I’m not going to be getting my job back and, even if I do, I won’t feel comfortable going back.”

Brown, who had faced dismissal on several administrative charges, was notified of his six-month suspension on Dec. 11, about a week after an administrative hearing officer submitted his recommendations to the district.

The officer, Ronald D. Wenkart, had recommended that Brown, 33, be suspended for 15 days without pay on grounds that he was insubordinate, discourteous and willfully disobedient to his superiors during a confrontation with Assistant Supt. Robert Church at district headquarters on Aug. 23.

However, Wenkart said he did not believe there was convincing evidence that Brown had interfered with a student’s arrest, as the district alleged. Nor did he find evidence of physical threats or violence against Church.

Earlier allegations that Brown had possessed cocaine and had encouraged students to pass out protest leaflets and to leave their classes during a student walkout were dropped by the district on Wenkart’s recommendation.

Although the district was not required to accept Wenkart’s findings, it did agree with most of his recommendations, said James Baca, an attorney representing the district. The trustees, however, did not believe a 15-day suspension was sufficient and, during a closed session on Dec. 11, they voted to suspend him for six months without pay, Baca said. The suspension was to be in effect until June 30, and would not give Brown credit for time he had spent off the job pending the outcome of the administrative hearing, Baca said.

School board President Pam Sturgeon said she believes Brown’s position does not need to be filled. “You’ve got enough administrators over there,” Sturgeon said.

Brown, who had served as Hawthorne’s security chief since 1988, was initially suspended from the district in March after he was briefly jailed for failing to appear in court four times since 1984 on traffic citations.

After newspaper accounts reported that Brown had been arrested for possession of crack cocaine in May, 1988, and had entered a court-supervised drug-counseling program, district officials sought to dismiss him on grounds that he had possessed cocaine and had brought notoriety to the district.

Several black parents, students and community activists regard the case against Brown, who is black, as evidence that the district has been harassing black employees--an allegation the district denies. Brown is one of several employees who have filed racial-harassment complaints with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

A state report issued in August recommended that the board of trustees, which is predominantly Latino, develop programs to reduce racial conflicts and appoint an ombudsman to investigate complaints.

Brown, who said he is owed $17,500 in back pay, said he plans to sue the district for slander and defamation of character.

“These people ruined my life,” Brown said. “I’ve been out to four or five job interviews, and everyone knows who I am.”