A suspended Greenwood police officer who was facing termination for sending messages with derogatory slurs has resigned.
Officer Elijah Allen resigned Thursday from the Greenwood Police Department, the agency announced Friday morning. His disciplinary hearing, which was set for Oct. 30, has been also been canceled.
Allen was facing termination for allegedly violating three of the department’s policies: Information and Technology Use; Mobile Data Center Use; and Standards of Conduct. Disciplinary charges were filed against Allen based on electronic communications compiled after another former officer, Sam Bowen, filed a federal lawsuit against the city in June. In that lawsuit, Bowen is accusing police chief Jim Ison of depriving/conspiring to deprive him of his First Amendment right of freedom of speech based on posts made on Facebook before the May municipal primary and messages he sent to other officers.
Police officials have compiled a 5,320-page document containing instant messages sent and received by Bowen from July 14, 2021 to July 14 of this year. Within the document are over 100 exchanges between six officers — including Allen — that contain derogatory language that were sent on department equipment, according to the documents. The messages contained slurs referring to African Americans, Jewish people, the LGBT community and people with intellectual disabilities.
Based on the messages, the six officers were interviewed. Three of the officers resigned before disciplinary charges could be brought and one officer is not up for termination.
Bowen and officer Elijah Allen were suspended and facing termination because of the messages. Last week, the Greenwood Police Merit Commission unanimously voted 5-0 to fire Bowen for violating department policies following a disciplinary hearing.
City and police officials had testified during that hearing that they felt the messages were alarming and could undermine the public’s trust in the department. Officials also felt they could undermine an officer’s credibility in court.
When asked about the messages, Bowen said they were not something he was proud of.
Under questioning during the hearing, Ison testified that he randomly selected two officers from each shift during the same time period to have their messages pulled to see if the conduct was systemic. Evidence showed that it was isolated to one group of officers, he said.
Greenwood Police has also hired a firm to do a comprehensive study of all arrests and traffic stops by all officers in the department over the last year to determine if profiling is a problem. It’s expected to take nine months to know the results, Ison said.
