Heber City leaders were aware of the allegations of racism and misconduct in two lawsuits against new Police Chief Parker Sever while he was the police chief in Hanford, California.
Hanford’s attorney assured them the accusations lacked merit, and Heber City made the hire.
“More importantly,” a statement from Heber City reads, “Parker Sever brought the information of his own free will to Heber City when interviewing, which we felt spoke highly of his integrity.”
Sever, who was hired by Heber City a few months ago, had previously worked for 27 years in the Hanford City Police Department, eight as chief.
Two former officers from his former department — Jason Stingley and Patrick Jurdon — filed lawsuits against the City of Hanford, its police department, Sever and several other individuals. According to court documents, both men have demanded a trial jury.
Stingley’s lawsuit was filed in January 2023, more than six months before Sever was hired as police chief in Heber City. Jurdon’s lawsuit was filed in December.
Court documents indicate that Stingley, a Black officer, began his career in Hanford in the belief that “Blue” held more solidarity than an individual police officer’s race and ethnicity.”
The lawsuit claimed this was quickly proven incorrect.
In 2006, the document says, Sever — who was Stingley’s senior officer — told him “to drop to his knees on the well traversed Hanford Main Street and “pretend” that he was yet another stereotypical Black man who committed a crime such that his Caucasian police colleagues could “play act before the African American Hanford citizenry, the beating and excessively aggressive arrest of a Black man.”
This, the lawsuit alleges, was to “send a threatening and cautionary message to the African American onlookers.”
The document states Stingley felt an obligation to follow the order and take part in the act.
In 2007, the lawsuit alleges, then-Lt. Sever told Stingley that “in Sever’s eyes, he was just a subordinate Black man, and as such he was going to request that Hanford Police Department Chief … provide Officer Stingley with a special dispensation to carry a spear instead of a handgun.”
The lawsuit filed by representatives of Jurdon, who is white, claims that in 2020 and 2021 he made four reports of misconduct against fellow officers — once when two colleagues made a racist meme, and once during “a Secret Service detail” of which few details are provided, and once when an officer pushed a man 10 feet across an alley and onto his back before another officer stomped on their head.
“After Officer Jurdon made the report, these officers photo-shopped Officer Jurdon’s face onto the body of Derek Chauvin while he was kneeling on George Floyd,” the lawsuit states. “Officer Jurdon was also subjected to witnessing racial discrimination and hostility directed towards another African American officer, Jason Stingley, by Chief Sever and other officers within the Department.”
Asked if he’d like to comment on the allegations against him, Sever said while he would love to, he is not able to due to the pending litigation. He did say the City of Hanford does not believe he did anything wrong.
“I look forward to the truthfulness of the allegations to come out,” he said.