CENTRAL CITY — The Village of Central City has been served with a lawsuit claiming the civil rights of their former police chief were violated when they moved to terminate him.
Former Police Chief Nicholas Heath filed the five-count complaint in federal court claiming:
Retaliatory Discharge, violation of the Whistleblower Act, Human Rights Act violation, and two other counts of retaliation.
Heath was hired by the village in 2009 to serve as a police officer and in 2020 he was promoted police chief.
The complaint says in February 2021, Central City and Junction City police officer Josh Patten was alleged to have been involved in an incident at the Hideout bar in Junction City where he and a group of others reportedly chased down two men of color outside the bar where Patten was alleged to have called one of the men the “n-word” and threatened to shoot him.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Department investigated the incident and forwarded the information to Heath who was Patten’s supervisor. After discussing the situation with the then Village Mayor Ken Buchanan and the then village attorney, it was decided Patten would be written up and be suspended for one day.
The lawsuit claims that shortly after that discipline, Karli Patten, then the Central City Village Clerk and Josh Patten’s wife filed a complaint with the village claiming Heath had sexually harassed her. That claim would months later result in Heath being terminated.
However, in October 2022, the Illinois Department of Human Rights ruled there was substantial evidence showing Heath’s termination was retaliation for him writing up Officer Patten and that Heath had indeed suffered violations of his civil rights. He subsequently filed the federal civil rights case within the legal time constraints.
The suit includes names not only Buchanan but current Mayor Gary Hall and board members Matthew Blake Dukes, RoseAnne Pickett, Darwin Cushman, and Chuck Mattmiller.
A first setting in the case has not yet been scheduled as the court awaits a response from those included in the suit.