NEWS

City appealing fired policeman’s win in photos case

Mark Barrett
ASH

ASHEVILLE – City government is appealing a state Court of Appeals decision that called for it to reinstate a police officer who was fired in 2010 because racist and pornographic images were found on a computer he rented.

The state Supreme Court has not yet said whether it will hear the city’s appeal, but has stayed the effect of the Court of Appeals decision for now.

The Court of Appeals ruled May 6 that the city must put Roger S. Aly back on the police force and give him back pay. Aly had also won before the city Civil Service Board and in Buncombe County Superior Court.

Aly had rented a computer for personal use from a rental store and returned it in 2009. The next users found the 16 images after they got the computer and notified the city.

Aly has said he had received the images from others unsolicited and that they had apparently gotten on his computer when he backed up data on his BlackBerry smartphone. He said he thought he had deleted images from the computer.

The city said the images violated its policies and would tarnish city government’s reputation and effectiveness.

Aly made himself more likely to be subject to complaints from the public by “allowing himself to be viewed ... as tolerating or even condoning racism and sexism” and his “credibility is damaged,” the city said in a filing with the Supreme Court.

It says the Court of Appeals’ decision amounts to micromanagement of the city’s authority to justifiably fire workers and will “perpetuate an untrustworthy and potentially incompetent work force.”

Aly’s attorneys disagree, saying the dismissal was not justified and comparing the city’s arguments to saying “the sky is falling.”

“The supposed ‘horrors’ resulting from the (Court of Appeals) decision are highly speculative,” they wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court.

“The public interest, if anything, is to end this pointless expenditure of taxpayer resources in fighting the decisions of three separate neutral deliberative bodies who have all ruled in favor of Aly,” they wrote.

City spokeswoman Dawa Hitch and an attorney for Aly both declined to comment Wednesday.