LAFOLLETTE, Tenn. — LaFollette Police Officer Danielle Gilbert accused the city of discriminating against her on the basis of her race and sex, in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, obtained by WBIR through an Open Records Request.
"This toxic environment of racism in a city with less than 0.02% of an African American population makes it a continuous struggle for a black female police officer to be successful in my job," Gilbert wrote in the complaint.
Gilbert said she is working toward her bachelor's degree and tried to use LaFollette's tuition reimbursement program for city employees. She said the Chief of Police approved her request but City Administrator Stan Foust denied it.
"Stan Foust has approved other tuition reimbursement requests for other white males within the employment of the City," Gilbert wrote.
Gilbert's EEOC complaint said Foust told her reimbursement was denied because the courses weren't related to Gilbert's job as a police officer. Her coursework is listed in a document in her personnel file. It shows courses involving criminal justice, corrections and juvenile justice.
The complaint from 2023 outlines a series of complaints made by Gilbert against the city, beginning in 2018. Gilbert wrote she filed a grievance against a supervisor for making a racist comment directed at her around January of that year. A later complaint said the 2018 grievance was filed against then-Captain Steve Wallen, who is now the Chief of Police in LaFollette.
A letter sent from former city administrator Jimmy Jeffries to Wallen said Jeffries found the comments to be inappropriate.
"Although we do not think that the comments are racially motivated, they are insensitive and inappropriate," Jeffries wrote in that letter.
Shortly "after it had gotten out" Gilbert filed the complaint against Wallen, she said someone put a pacifier in her mailbox, she wrote in a complaint filed in 2019. She also wrote that her supervisor wrote her up multiple times as retaliation to the 2018 complaint against Wallen.
"I have done an extensive investigation and have not been able to find evidence to substantiate the complaint," Jeffries wrote in a letter responding to the 2019 complaint. "However, the disciplinary actions you have received will not be put into your City of LaFollette personnel file."
Jeffries told Gilbert she would no longer be working under the supervision of the sergeant who wrote her up.
Gilbert's 2023 complaint further outlined alleged racial slurs during council meetings by the mayor toward another Black employee, Daniel Foster.
Foster was fired by the LaFollette City Council in January 2021. As WBIR revealed in 2022, the city of LaFollette paid Foster $400,000 in a confidential settlement agreement.
WBIR submitted an Open Records Request to the city of LaFollette for Gilbert's personnel file, the 2018 grievance and any grievance filed in 2019.
The city of LaFollette provided Gilbert's personnel file but not the original complaint against Wallen nor the letter from Jeffries to Wallen. Neither the complaint nor the letter from Jeffries was in Wallen's personnel file.