Roanoke Rapids City Attorney Geoffrey Davis told the city council Tuesday night there will be a response to a lawsuit filed by former police Chief Bobby Martin.
Tuesday was the first meeting the council has had since the city was served Friday.
Mayor Emery Doughtie had no comment on the lawsuit following the meeting.
“We are taking it seriously,” Davis said. “It’s not being ignored by anybody on this council or by anybody in the city of Roanoke Rapids but at this early date it’s going to take us some time to respond in a thorough fashion.”
The attorney said, “We’re going to be deliberate about it and we’re going to be thorough about it. I look forward to being able to get those responses out there to the public.”
In discussing the lawsuit after City Manager Kelly Traynham gave her regular report near the end of the meeting, Davis said of the complaint, “I think we need to acknowledge that and address it briefly.”
Davis explained that Martin is the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which centers on his termination in April of 2023 and names the city, Traynham and the investigative consulting group of Richardson and Davis.
Richardson and Davis is the outside consulting group hired by the city in 2023 with the mission of conducting a review of some issues going on at the Roanoke Rapids Police Department.
The group produced a report for the city “that was relied on by the city manager in that termination decision.”
Since news of the lawsuit broke last week, Davis said, “There’s been some demands in public, to city officials or to groups talking on social media about the city responding to that or answering those questions immediately.”
He said, however, “That’s really not the proper forum for us to answer something of this weight. The plaintiff, Mr. Martin, has been given the benefit of the legal system and he has filed a formal complaint. He’s had over a year and a half or a year and some change to formulate and construct the allegations he’s made against the city.”
Davis said, “So while it’s not going to take us as long to respond to those, we are going to do it in a thorough fashion. When that comes we will let the public and the media know. It’s not going to be a year down the road. It’s going to be within a reasonable time period required by the rules of civil procedure.”
The attorney stressed that the allegations in a lawsuit are merely allegations. “They’re not proven, they’ve not been vetted by anybody before they’ve been filed and as I said there will be a response that comes from the city.”
Prior to Martin’s termination, Richardson and Davis produced a lengthy investigative report based not only on interviews but on information and data they received as part of their investigation, the city attorney said. “When all of this was happening and those officers were on suspension prior to Chief Martin’s termination, there was a lot of public scrutiny ‘about we want you to release this information, we want you to tell us what’s in the report.’”
The response, Davis said, “Was that we can’t tell you that. The law prevents us from revealing that kind of employee data about our personnel. Even in situations where we have difficult employees that you may have to take adverse personnel action against, the law really limits what we can reveal about them. That’s why nothing up until this point other than the information that he had been terminated has the city been able to respond.”
Since Martin filed the lawsuit, some of that may change.
“I’m never going to say that it’s going to be open season on what is in an employee’s personnel file for a public employee like in the city, but one of the things that we’re going to be evaluating at this point as we evaluate this lawsuit and evaluate a response, is going to be how much information we can legally release,” Davis said. “I would say for folks that want more information, that want to find out what’s the details of this, to hear the city’s side of it, stay tuned, because that’s going to be coming. We’re going to do it in a careful fashion.”
He also discussed the role the city’s insurance carrier will have in Martin’s complaint. “They’ve got to have time to review these claims and review all the data that’s involved here in this investigative report and then to cooperate with us as we try to form a response.”
Martin claims that his termination by Traynham was malicious and corrupt.
He says it was motivated by personal desire to protect a department head, protect her advantageous political connections with a department head and other local politicians to retaliate against him for following legitimate and valid actions.
The attorneys who filed the lawsuit on Martin’s behalf did not name the department head in the document.
