By Joshua Albert
A 35th District police supervisor, Sgt. Shaun Butts, has been taken off the street and reassigned to desk duty without his police-issued side arm.
On the night of August 19th in West Oak Lane, a slew of gunshots went off. Witnesses later saw three men being detained and patted down by responding officers. All three men allegedly had firearms, according to officers’ accounts given to The Daily News.
That’s when things allegedly got weird.
Sgt. Shaun Butts arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting, and apparently ordered the men released. No paperwork, no crime scene unit, no arrests.
The incident then prompted another officer, who was disturbed by what he had witnessed, to alert Internal Affairs about the incident. IA then initiated an investigation.
From The Daily News:
This isn’t the first time Butts has found himself in the middle of controversy.
He filed a lawsuit against the city and the Police Department last year, claiming that he faced racial discrimination and retaliation for being part of a 2009 lawsuit that the Guardian Civic League filed against the city over Domelights, a sometimes vile online message board that was regularly used by cops to spread gossip.
Butts claimed in his lawsuit that he faced difficulties at work for speaking out about Domelights, and was passed over by Ramsey for a promotion and also suspended for five days for granting vacation time to a handful of cops – after his boss had told him not to.
Sgt. Butts is the Treasurer for The Guardian Civic League, a group that advocates against discrimination of African-American police officers.
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