A new lawsuit claims that the mayor of Spotswood, New Jersey, tried to have a Black man removed from a municipal building because of his race.
Mayor Jackie Palmer reportedly ordered officers from the Spotswood Police Department to remove the man on April 22, 2022.
The lawsuit was filed on Jan. 15 in the Superior Court of Middlesex County by Spotswood Police Officer Richard Sasso Jr. According to Pix 11 News, Palmer went on a racist rant after she tried to have a Black man inside the municipal building in Spotswood removed by the police. Sasso is suing the Borough of Spotswood and Palmer for unchecked power, cover-ups and overt racism, including the incident in April.
Palmer is the mayor of the predominantly white town with a population of less than 10,000 people, and she allegedly approached a Black man in the Spotswood Municipal Building while “clearly aggravated” and told him to leave the town hall for no reason. The man reported the incident three days later, on April 25, 2022, at the Spotswood Police Department, and Sasso was assigned to investigate.
Sasso said surveillance footage from the city building showed Palmer “being extremely antagonistic” and advising the man he had to listen to her “because she is the mayor.”
After the man returned to the city building on April 28, 2022, and recorded the visit to “document any wrongdoing,” the mayor’s staff called the Spotswood police, claiming they needed “police escorts to their offices, as they felt unsafe,” says the lawsuit, according to NJ Advance Media. “Throughout this time, the resident did nothing inappropriate and was not threatening in any manner.”
After the police arrived and Palmer was told that they could not remove him because the man had not committed any crime and arresting him would be a violation of his civil rights, the mayor became hostile.
“The elephant in the room is that he is f— Black, and this is not a diverse town, let’s be honest,” said the mayor. “I don’t need BLM and the KKK fighting on our front steps over this.”
“Let me just be clear that if we call downstairs, I expect someone f— here. I cannot and will not tolerate anybody feeling unsafe here,” she added before noting that the man could be off his meds and lurking outside her office with a knife. “I get f— shanked because he decided he wanted to wait to see me.”
Sasso also claimed that Palmer resents him due to an internal affairs investigation several years ago that resulted in the mayor’s police officer husband’s resignation. Sasso claims Palmer retaliated against him for not defending her husband by withholding promotions.
“Our mayor is, you know, a self-proclaimed bully,” he told Pix 11 News. “It’s par for the course with her.” Palmer allegedly once told Sasso, “You better start getting in line, because when I tear through this place the only people left standing are the people that I like.”
Sasso also said that her harassment of the man at the city building was consistent with her usual behavior and that she abuses her power “on an almost daily basis.”
According to NBC News, Palmer’s lawyer, Eric Martin Bernstein, said in a statement the mayor is being targeted by “a handful of members of the Spotswood Police Department,” who are describing her as a racist. “She is not interfering with, nor has she interfered with, police operations, nor is she a racist,” wrote Bernstein.
A court hearing on Jan. 19 about a motion to seal the lawsuit will be decided on Feb. 2.
