Village Manager Wants 'Shocking Verbal Bombs' Stricken From Lawsuit

FLOSSMOOR, IL — Flossmoor's Village Manager is fighting back against accusations of racism and retaliation made in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the village's former police chief.

In a filing made Monday, attorneys for Bridget Wachtel called for some of the language included in police chief Jerel Jones' lawsuit to be removed, decrying some of the allegations as a "deeply personal and defamatory evisceration" of Wachtel depicting her as a racist, the complaint reads.

Flossmoor Mayor Michelle Nelson two weeks ago announced the termination of police chief Jerel Jones, citing "serious operational and administrative lapses under his watch."

Chief Jerel Jones was hired in March 2023, following the departure of former chief Tod Kamleiter, who retired in December 2022 after nearly three decades with the department. Jones is the department's first Black police chief.

Last week, attorneys for Jones responded, alleging Jones' firing was a violation of his civil rights, and that Jones received "disparate treatment" from Wachtel, according to court documents. In the federal lawsuit filed by the Disparti Law Group, Wachtel is accused of issuing "self-contradictory and hyperbolic performance memos to Jerel that criticize seemingly every aspect of his performance, his speech and speech patterns, his initiative and non-initiative..."

The lawsuit claimed Wachtel "imposed a master-slave dynamic between her and Jerel and, if he did not fit himself into that expected dynamic, he could not be Police Chief."

Attorneys for Wachtel asked for some of the language to be removed from the lawsuit, saying it "a "not appropriately included as part of a short and plain statement of the claim," according to the filing.

The filing alleges Jones' lawsuit included the "tremendously offensive, totally unnecessary, and personally damaging paragraphs" without any factual basis, and that "in a transparent attempt to drum up political, media and community ire, they were advanced solely and specifically as part of a defamatory scheme."

The filing states specific paragraphs including the claim that Wachtel "imposed a master-slave dynamic between her and Jerel and, if he did not fit himself into that expected dynamic, he could not be Police Chief."

Another cited portion includes that, "Wachtel’s behavior is race discrimination in an insidious form, to wit, the emasculation and evisceration of any form of Blackness out of Jerel and insistence that he reconstitute as White. Then, and only, then, as White-Black Police Chief will he meet Wachtel’s demands and succeed.”

A third portion cited in the filing reads, "'[C]ommon sense' to Jerel in running a Police Department was to use a Police Department form, but Jerel's Black version of 'common sense' was not up to muster with Wachtel's White version of 'common sense.'"

A fourth accused Watchel of having a "hypercritical fixation on [Jones'] speech and manner of communication," for which the lawsuit is explained by how "fundamentally, it involves a White-Black power dynamic of an embedded White Administrator not liking how the Black man is talking."

A fifth said Wachtel's memoranda toward Jones were "personally derogatory.

"Jerel states that Wachtel treated him in this fashion because she does not like that he is Black, does not like that a Black man takes initiatives, does not like that a Black man might speak differently or use different speech patterns and tones than her view of how a Black man should speak, and wants to continue to remind the Black man that he is subservient to the White power structure imposed and enforced by Wachtel," the lawsuit reads.

Attorneys from the Sotos Law Group on Monday said that "an elaborate press conference" held by Jones and his attorneys pointed media to the complaint, "in order to publicly skewer Wachtel as an unabashed racist, as part of a transparent, insidious and ill-conceived scheme to use this Court’s processes and its associated litigation privilege as a shield for their libelous and defamatory campaign."

The filing goes on to say that the language used in the complaint permanently damages Wachtel's reputation.

"... the inflammatory and shocking verbal bombs Plaintiff and his counsel publicly launched will likely prevent Defendant Wachtel—even after she disproves the allegations in the Complaint— from ever fully regaining her reputation and erasing the taint of being labeled a racist in her diverse community in the shocking manner she has been described," the filing reads.

The lawsuit filed by Jones states that in fall 2023, Jones reportedly complained to Nelson about "disparate treatment" from Wachtel, claiming "he was being treated more severely and held to a higher standard of performance" than the village's White and Hispanic department heads.

"Village Manager Wachtel was engaging him in overbearing scrutiny, micromanagement, baseless criticism, personally attacking criticisms, and generally holding him to a standard of performance that would be unachievable by anyone," the lawsuit states.

The filing asks that some specific language be stricken from the suit in order to "prevent the further publication of said impertinent and scandalous accusations."

Wachtel's attorneys also seek for Jones to cover the attorney fees and costs associated with researching their response to the lawsuit.

Jones' lawsuit seeks all available relief, including reinstatement, back pay and damages, and an injunction against the Village requiring it to send the Village Manager and all other administration officials to "comprehensive racial sensitivity training immediately to prevent any comparable action from happening to anyone else again."

Jones also demands a public apology from the Mayor and the Village.