In one instance, Bonenberger described how Lt. Michael Muxo approached him at the scene of an unrelated investigation and, pulling him to a nearby alley, told him that he had instructions from Col. Reggie Harris, who is African American, to “bring color down to the Academy,” and that if Bonenberger didn’t make a fuss, he could expect to still land a good position in the future.
Sgt. David Bonenberger.
Sgt. David Bonenberger’s lawsuit against the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for racial discrimination ended in victory yesterday, when a federal jury agreed that Bonenberger, who is white, was unfairly passed over for a position in favor of another candidate simply because she was black.
“I wanted to give the police department an opportunity to make it right,” Bonenberger said at a press conference today at his lawyer’s office. “I had no choice. I couldn’t roll over and let it go. I had to stand up for myself and everyone else who was employed by the police department.”
The twenty-year veteran of the force was awarded $620,000 by the jury roughly three years after Bonenberger first sent in an application to become the assistant director of the police academy in September, 2010. The civil suit claimed that Bonenberger’s superiors told him they had already decided to give the job to an African American female sergeant named Angela Taylor.
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