Harris County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office
A Harris County Precinct 3 Constable patrol vehicle.
A former Harris County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office deputy was awarded $1.65 million by a federal jury in a harassment lawsuit against the county.
The jury awarded the sum to former deputy Bert Whittington III last month after finding that Whittington, a Black man, was harassed because of his race by his supervisors, according to court documents. The jury’s decision in the trial comes nearly five years after Whittington initially sued the county and the Harris County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office in October 2021.
The lawsuit accused two of Whittington’s supervisors of having a “clique” with other deputies in the department that made “exceptionally offensive jokes and comments.” According to court documents, the “core of the jokes and comments were that African Americans with dark skin color were an inferior race.”
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Whittington, who joined the constable’s office in 2017, claimed in the lawsuit that he was the only “dark skin color African American” in his unit at the time and that the “clique” was exclusively made up of those with “light color skin.”
The lawsuit originally named Harris County Precinct 3 Deputy Sherman Eagleton as a defendant in the lawsuit. However, it accused Eagleton, a Black man, only of being “aloof” and “ignorant” of the alleged racism in the department.
Eagleton and the two supervisors were later removed as defendants in the lawsuit.
Following several other instances of alleged harassment — including allegedly being singled out to be the lead man during multiple tactical entries — Whittington was fired from the department in August 2020 for allegedly failing to wear his body-worn camera and mishandling evidence.
The lawsuit argued Whittington’s supervisors knowingly gave him “defective” body cams despite him allegedly reporting issues with the cameras.
Neither Eagleton’s office nor the Harris County Attorney’s Office, which represented the county in the lawsuit, immediately responded to requests for comment regarding the jury’s verdict.