Lawsuit claims Lafayette Police violated First Amendment rights of union president

Former Police Association of Lafayette President Cpl. David Stanley filed a federal lawsuit against the Lafayette Police Department Tuesday over punishment he received for posting as the union on Facebook.

Stanley, who has been with department since 2009, was given two weeks' unpaid suspension over a pair of Facebook posts he made using the union's Facebook page in May 2020.

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Stanley was PAL president when he made the posts, but stepped down from that role shortly after LPD began investigating the posts in 2020.

One post expressed the union's opposition to a proposed state law that was backed by the chiefs of Lafayette Parish's other municipal police departments, and the other praised LPD officers who conducted a traffic stop that resulted in a drug bust.

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Stanley criticized the discipline early on as an attack on the union's constitutionally protected right to free speech. He argued that even though LPD can restrict the political speech of its officers, it cannot restrict the speech of the police union.

He appealed the punishment in February to Lafayette's Fire & Police Civil Service Board, which reduced his discipline from two weeks to three days of unpaid suspension but did not return him to his position as a K-9 officer, which he had requested.

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Both LPD and Stanley have appealed that board's decision on his punishment in state court. But Tuesday's filing in federal court puts Stanley in the position to pursue financial compensation from the department for the alleged violation of his and the union's First Amendment rights.

"LPD’s actions are nothing more than a blatant attempt to chill Stanley’s rights to free speech according to the First Amendment, chill and intimidate other members of PAL from speaking out on matters of public concern, and to chill and discourage membership in this lawful organization," his attorney James Sudduth III wrote.

In his federal filing, Stanley's attorney pointed to a 2018 legal memo written by Lafayette Consolidated Government's Legal Department that he insisted shows the department's discipline of Stanley was issued with "reckless disregard for the truth and the law."

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In the memo, then-City-Parish Attorney Paul Escott wrote that it is "not within the authority of LCG or LPD to regulate the activities of the Police Association of Lafayette Local #905, (and) neither has any intention to 'handle' the union's actions."

While Stanley's state lawsuit will determine whether or not his punishment conforms to state law and civil service rules, his federal lawsuit, for which he has requested a jury trial, will deal primarily in financial relief.

He has asked the federal court in Lafayette to award attorneys' fees, lost wages and compensatory damages, in addition to other forms of relief.

A date for the federal trial has not yet been set.

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This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Fmr union president sues Lafayette police for Facebook post punishment