Former investigator in WyCo DA’s Community Integrity Unit files discrimination suit
A former investigator with the Wyandotte County district attorney’s Community Integrity Unit has filed a lawsuit alleging he was fired over his race, sex and religion.
Aaron Circle Bear, a Native American man who is gay, in June sued the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and the DA’s office, also claiming the unit, which was charged with investigating wrongful convictions and police misconduct, had a “toxic, discriminatory and hostile” culture.
Circle Bear was the first of three unit employees to be terminated by District Attorney Mark Dupree in May 2021. The other two were later fired for making remarks that violated the office’s code of conduct. Those firings were announced as KCTV5 published secret recordings that revealed those two members of the unit, known as the CIU, made disturbing comments about various groups.
Dupree’s office has since hired new investigators and a lawyer, Mark Kind, to oversee the unit.
The DA’s office did not respond Monday or Tuesday to a request for comment on Circle Bear’s lawsuit. A Wyandotte County spokesperson said the UG was not able to comment on pending litigation.
In his lawsuit, Circle Bear, who joined the DA’s office in January 2021, said his colleagues expressed “deeply offensive” views about minorities, people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ community, among other groups. They also disparaged Native Americans, his attorney wrote.
Circle Bear found the comments especially disturbing, not only because he is a member of some of the groups his colleagues denigrated, but also since the “very people” one of his colleagues suggested deserved to die “made up a majority of the population the CIU was created to serve.”
Black people, for example, are seven times more likely than white people to be wrongly convicted of murder, according to a report by the National Registry of Exonerations. Yet one of Circle Bear’s former colleagues, his lawsuit alleges, called Black people “s— bags” who did “s— bag things.”
Circle Bear also alleged his coworkers harassed him for burning sage, a spiritual practice. He shared concerns about his CIU colleagues with four assistant DAs, according to his lawsuit.
Then in May 2021, Circle Bear was called into a meeting with Dupree, who allegedly told him he heard there was a lack of “compatibility” in the CIU. The meeting lasted minutes and ended with Dupree terminating Circle Bear, his attorney wrote in the lawsuit.
Circle Bear later complained to HR about his coworkers and the discrimination he said he experienced. HR told him the DA’s office would investigate, but he feared a fair probe would be difficult since the office was “investigating itself.”
Sarah Liesen, Circle Bear’s lawyer, said Monday her team would “fight for justice” for him.
After the firings last year, Dupree said he was “committed to creating a workplace culture free of homophobia, sexism and bigotry.” He said an outside agency would review cases handled by the fired employees.
Dupree’s CIU was created after the exoneration of Lamonte McIntyre, who was freed in 2017 after spending 23 years in prison for a double murder in Kansas City, Kansas, he did not commit.
Similar units in prosecutor offices across the country have proved crucial in dozens of exonerations.
Wyandotte County’s CIU has one exoneration under its belt: the release of Olin “Pete” Coones, an innocent man who spent 12 years in prison. Coones was released in November 2020 and died 108 days later from cancer that went undiagnosed behind bars.
The Star’s Aarón Torres contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 23, 2022 at 12:53 PM.
