DRUG UNIT SUPERVISORS ADMIT USING RACIAL SLURS

Eighteen months ago, a supervisor in an elite drug-enforcement unit
admitted that he used racial and sexist slurs to refer to
subordinates, informants and drug dealers and that he occasionally
wore a black "Sambo" mask around the office.

But the supervisor, Fredrick Guerra, has continued to collect his
$46,332 annual salary from the Cook County Sheriff's Police while his
disciplinary hearing grinds through the system.

Several other supervisors in the Cook County Metropolitan Enforcement
Group unit, including the deputy director, also were accused of
running a unit in which blacks were routinely referred to in
derogatory terms.

The allegations have been buried in a court file in the federal
courthouse in Chicago for months, but they were revealed publicly this
week by an attorney for two former MEG agents. The two are suing Cook
County Sheriff Michael Sheahan and five MEG supervisors over the
alleged harassment.

The controversy has surfaced with less than a month before the general
election for sheriff, prompting Sheahan, the Democratic incumbent, to
call the timing politically motivated.

"We did the right thing," Sheahan said. "We took appropriate
action."

Along with Guerra, the sheriff's office is seeking to fire Andy
Dourvris, who like Guerra, has been allowed to continue to work at his
annual salary, $64,228, during the disciplinary hearings. The
sheriff's office could have suspended the men with or without pay but
chose instead to reassign them to desk jobs.

Nonetheless, sheriff's spokeswoman Sally Daly said investigators took
the charges very seriously. "Our action in this case speaks for
itself," she said.

Andre Grant, an attorney for the plaintiffs, Yorli P. Huff and John D.
Lewis Jr., denied that he released the documents for political
reasons, saying he has nothing to do with the campaign of Sheahan's
opponent, former Chicago Police Supt. LeRoy Martin.

"No one is saying they shouldn't have due process," Grant said. "The
issue is these guys have made these horrible racial slurs, and they
are paying them to sit at a desk."

Neither Guerra nor Dourvris could be reached for comment.

At the center of the dispute is Huff, a 30-year-old African-American
woman who was hired by Cook County Sheriff's Police in 1992 and
assigned to the MEG unit to make undercover drug buys.

Over the years, according to her supervisors' admissions to sheriff's
investigators, she was derided as inept and called offensive names.
Huff maintains that her career was damaged because she was an
African-American woman.

One MEG agent interviewed by sheriff's investigators said her bosses
told her to make sure "that there were no watermelon seeds, chicken
bones or Afro Sheen" in a car driven by Huff.

Huff declined to be interviewed as did Lewis, a former MEG agent added
to the suit in recent months.

The MEG unit, created 27 years ago to combat low-level drug dealing,
is made up of officers from the State Police, Sheriff's Police and
suburban police departments.

The controversy began in February 1997, when Huff filed a complaint
with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It found in
her favor, and she filed her suit alleging discrimination.

Sheriff's police launched their investigation after Huff filed her
EEOC complaint, and they interviewed dozens of former and current MEG
employees.

In April 1997, Guerra admitted to sheriff's investigators that he
often used racial slurs but that they were good-natured barbs,
according to a transcript of his statement to the investigators

released by Grant.

"Being a minority myself, guys are constantly making fun out of Cheech
and Chong stuff," he said. "And no big deal . . . . it wasn't done in
a bad way, as a joke."

Guerra also admitted wearing at the office an offensive, dark-skinned
rubber mask with curly hair. The covering is described in the
sheriff's investigative report as a "Sambo" mask. Guerra claimed white
agents had used the mask on undercover operations in black
neighborhoods "for safety reasons."

He also told investigators that one of his supervisors, Dourvris, a
MEG deputy director, commonly used a racial slur and referred to
blacks as lazy, according to the transcript.

In addition, he told investigators that another of his supervisors,
his brother, Frank, an Illinois State Police trooper who worked for
the MEG unit, also used racially offensive language in referring to
Huff.

Frank Guerra was reprimanded but no further disciplinary action is
anticipated, a state police spokesman said.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady