City asks for federal investigation

Navin Sharma, seen in this photo from a September press conference, agreed to a $1.65 million settlement. (Troy Wayrynen/Columbian files)

Vancouver is asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the city’s handling of the termination of a police officer who won a $1.65 million discrimination settlement last month.

City officials are continuing to seek an outside organization to review the termination of police officer Navin Sharma in 2006. Stung by comments that the outside review amounted to a whitewash, Mayor Royce Pollard sent a certified letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle on Friday.

“I am requesting that the Department of Justice initiate an investigation into potential civil or criminal violations in the matter of the termination of Vancouver Police Officer Navin Sharma,” Pollard wrote in the letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Harris.

Pollard, in an interview, said it’s the first time he can recall the city requesting a Justice Department review. He said he believes the city manager, police chief and city administration will hold up well to the outside scrutiny.

“This is a good city,” he said. “I don’t want this cloud hanging over it.”

The Justice Department will conduct a preliminary review and then determine whether the request merits a full-blown investigation, said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle.

“What is unusual is that the city is making this request,” she said. “In the usual course of events, we become aware of alleged civil rights violations from a victim or the victim’s advocates. Quite honestly, the FBI will open a preliminary civil rights violation simply based on news reports.”

Sharma, a native of India, said he faced retaliation after winning a previous discrimination award from the city and said he was unjustly fired for making mistakes on drunken driving reports.

Pollard said the city will continue to seek its own independent review that will examine past personnel cases, analyze policies and procedures for internal affairs investigations and disciplinary actions, and conduct a climate or cultural assessment of the overall agency.

Sharma sued the city alleging discrimination and retaliation.

His attorneys claimed the errors were inadvertent mistakes not meriting termination. They said Sharma had been targeted for retaliation and had endured taunts about his East Indian ethnicity ever since getting labeled as a snitch in 1998 for testifying against two sergeants in an internal affairs investigation.