Renatta Frazier, the former Springfield police officer
who won a $650,000 settlement in her racial discrimination suit against the
city, found herself on the defending end of another lawsuit this week, this
time accused of libel by a former leader of African-American community. “I regret that it has come to this, because I
think it’s distasteful,” Frazier says. Frazier was a rookie cop erroneously accused of
mishandling a 911 call from a woman who later said she had been raped.
During almost a year of media reports saying Frazier “failed to
prevent the rape,” she resigned from the department and moved her
family out of state. An October 2002 investigation by Illinois Times revealed the rape
had occurred before Frazier was dispatched to the scene. In February, the rape victim sued Frazier, SPD Lt.
Rickey Davis, and their attorney, Courtney Cox, claiming they had defamed
her and portrayed her in a false light, and accusing them of intentional
infliction of emotional distress. Stephen Hedinger, attorney for the rape
victim, says that suit is still in the discovery phase. This week, Hedinger filed another lawsuit against
Frazier, this time on behalf of Carl Madison, former president of the
Springfield branch of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. Madison’s claim is based on The Enemy in Blue, a book written and
self-published by Frazier and her son Kourtney Mitchell. In his complaint,
Madison cites passages in which the authors say he had lied and “sold
out” instead of representing Frazier’s best interests. As a result, Madison claims, he has suffered
“severe damage to his reputation as a past and potential public
servant” as well as “anxiety, humiliation, nervousness, and
mental and emotional anguish.” He asks for at least $500,000. Frazier says she wrote the truth in her account. “I believe in honesty. I believe in what’s
right and what’s good and what’s fair. And I have attempted to
live my life with the philosophy — that God has been so good to me
that it doesn’t leave me room to be bad to anyone else. We all know,
though, there are times in your life when you have to defend yourself, and
this is one of those times. So I will definitely do whatever I have to do
to defend myself.”
Frazier’s book is not the first time Madison has
been criticized for his dealings with black police officers in the group
Black Guardians. In January and February 2002, Frazier and the Guardians
had meetings with the NAACP, and believed the branch would provide legal
representation through the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of David Rose.
By March, however, the NAACP and the Guardians both announced they had
parted ways. In a strongly-worded letter sent to activists nationwide, the
Guardians said Madison had lied, misled them, and tried to broker deals
that would not have benefited their group. Madison categorically denied
those charges. Current NAACP president Ken Page declined to comment
on Madison’s lawsuit, saying he first learned of it when he read it
in the daily newspaper. Rose also declined to comment about Madison’s
case, but said he never had any formal agreement to represent Frazier.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2005.
